Application of conditional probability analysis to distant metastases from lung cancer

Abstract

Abstract. The aim of this study was to reveal whether there was non-randomness in the occurrence of metastasis and, if the nonrandomness was denied, whether there were specific metastatic patterns in lung cancer patients. Patients who presented with pathologically diagnosed lung cancer between January 1986 and March 2009 at our hospitals were included. A statistical method and conditional probability analysis were used to analyze the data. Under the condition of one metastatic organ A (lung, bone, brain, liver or adrenal gland; the 5 most common metastatic organs), we determined the conditional probability of distant metastasis to a specific organ B, which was written as P(B⎪A), and compared it with the probability of distant metastasis P(B). The study group consisted of 1,994 patients. Of the 1,994 patients, 839 (42.1%) had distant metastases at the time of the initial diagnosis of lung cancer. With the exception of the comparisons between P(lung) and P(lung⎪adrenal gland) and between P(adrenal gland) and P(adrenal gland⎪lung), there were statistically significant differences between P(B⎪A) and P(B) in the 5 metastatic organs. In addition, P(B⎪A) and P(C⎪B⎪A) varied according to each organ and P(confined to A), P(confined to A and B) and P(confined to A, B and C) were different in each metastatic organ. In lung cancer patients, distant metastasis occurred non-randomly and there may be certain specific patterns of distant metastasis. The accumulation of knowledge of specific patterns of metastasis may aid the approach to individualized treatments.

Prevalence and risk factors of brain metastases in patients with newly diagnosed advanced non-small-cell lung cancer

“…Differences in the observed rates may be explained by differences in the population studied, which becomes very apparent in two publications from the same Japanese group. They reported BM rates of 16% in a group of adenocarcinoma patients (10) and 28% in a cohort of "NSCLC" patients (12). Generally, the rate of adenocarcinomas in Asian NSCLC patients is quite high, and adenocarcinomas are among the solid tumors with the highest rates of BM (3).…”

“…Table 4 displays the results of the uni-and multivariable survival analyses for the subgroup of patients with BM. Besides the lung itself, the bones, the liver, and the adrenal glands, the brain is one of the most commonly affected organs in metastatic lung cancer (8,(9)(10)(11)(12).…”

Lung cancer with spontaneous regression of primary and metastatic sites: A case report

“…Lung cancer metastasis to vascular-and lymphatic-associated organs is frequent and the most common metastatic sites are the lung, bone and brain (4)(5)(6). Lymph node involvement is primarily regional in cancers of the internal organs, including lung cancer (4,7).…”

Antidepressant use and risk of central nervous system metastasis

“…More research must be conducted in this area to better predict where and when an individual's cancer will spread [72].…”