We came to the same conclusion; patients with solitary bone metastases had a better survival rate than patients with multiple bone metastases or visceral involvement.
Having a single bone lesion, rather than multiple bone lesions or additional visceral involvement, seems to be associated with the best outlook for survival.
Stage IV: Widespread KS, usually progressing from stage II or III, with involvement of multiple visceral organs with or without cutaneous KS.
It is important to note that these efficacy results were achieved in a patient population with multiple poor prognostic factors such as: visceral involvement, at least 2 sites of metastatic disease at baseline, negative hormone receptor status, and prior exposure to chemotherapy, including anthracyclines, in an adjuvant setting.
For the entire group (including those with one or multiple bone lesions and 32 patients with additional visceral involvement), the 5-year survival rate was 13%, whereas patients with solitary bone lesions had a 39% chance of 5-year survival.
Computed tomography is the preferred test to identify bowel and visceral involvement, and tumor staging [2].
CT and MRI are used to evaluate spatial extent, visceral involvement and osseous destruction [27].
Visceral involvement was present in 103 cases (77 %) with bone marrow involvement in 51 cases (49%% of them).
Since the outcome of ECD is related to the visceral involvement, particularly cardiovascular and pulmonary, following the establishment of the diagnosis, it is essential to assess the presence of visceral involvement using CT, MRI and/or FDG-PET/CT.
SSc is a complex immune connective tissue disorder with the main characteristic of fibrosis in skin and multiple visceral organs.
