Outcomes after surgery for metastatic lesions due to systemic cancer
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Patient-reported outcomes after orthopaedic surgery for metastatic lesions due to systemic cancer
IRAS ID
262874
Contact name
Samantha Downie
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Edinburgh, The Queen’s Medical Research Institute
Duration of Study in the UK
6 years, 11 months, 30 days
Research summary
When cancer spreads from its primary site to the bone (bony metastasis), the structure of the bone is weakened and a pathological fracture (break due to minimal force) can occur. Pathological fractures can cause pain, disability and death and are often a pre-terminal event in the course of a patient’s cancer journey. Although patients with pathological fractures may not have long to live, they are usually treated with surgery to improve pain and maximise their function. Although we know that pathological fractures don’t behave the same way as traumatic (non-pathological) fractures, we treat them with the same type of surgery since we don’t know what the outcomes are in terms of quality of life in these patients.
We will recruit patients undergoing surgery for bony metastases in three Scottish orthopaedic centres and follow them up until five years after their fracture. They will complete patient-reported outcome scores at regular intervals from baseline to 2 years after surgery. Our aim is to identify which patient and disease factors can predict poor quality of life at 3 months after surgery.
We will use this data to help counsel patients considering surgery. If any modifiable patient factors (such as type of surgery) are shown to influence outcome, future work will involve modifying these variables to see whether we can improve outcome.
This will be the first study globally to assess the influence of patient factors on quality of life after surgery for bony metastatic disease.
REC name
North East - Newcastle & North Tyneside 2 Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
19/NE/0303
Date of REC Opinion
27 Sep 2019
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion