Longitudinal survival trends of patients with cancer with surgically managed appendicular metastatic bone disease: systematic review

BACKGROUND: Advances in systemic cancer therapies have improved survival for patients with metastatic carcinoma; however, it is unknown whether these advances have translated to improved survival for patients with appendicular metastatic bone disease (A-MBD) after orthopedic interventions. We conducted a study to evaluate the trend in overall survival for patients who underwent orthopedic surgery for A-MBD between 1968 and 2018. METHODS: A systematic search of Embase and Medline to identify studies published since 1968 evaluating patients treated with orthopedic surgery for A-MBD was conducted for a previously published scoping review. We used a meta-regression model to assess the longitudinal trends in 1-, 2- and 5-year overall survival between 1968 and 2018. The midpoint year of patient inclusion for each study was used for analysis. We categorized primary tumour types into a tumour severity score according to prognosis for a further meta-regression analysis. RESULTS: Of the 5747 studies identified, 103 were retained for analysis. Meta-regression analysis showed no significant effect of midpoint study year on survival across all time points. There was no effect of the weighted average of tumour severity scores for each study on 1-year survival over time. CONCLUSION: There was no significant improvement in overall survival between 1968 and 2018 for patients with A-MBD who underwent orthopedic surgery. Orthopedic intervention remains a poor prognostic variable for patients with MBD. This finding highlights the need for improved collection of prospective data in this population to identify patients with favourable survival outcomes who may benefit from personalized oncologic surgical interventions.