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Skeletal muscle metastases: primary tumours, prevalence, and radiological features

  • Musculoskeletal
  • Published:
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Abstract

Background

Although skeletal muscles comprise nearly 50% of the total human body mass and are well vascularised, metastases in the musculature are rare. The reported prevalence of skeletal muscle metastases from post-mortem studies of patients with cancer is inconstant and ranges from 0.03 to 17.5%.

Materials and methods

Of 5,170 patients with metastasised cancer examined and treated at our institution during the period from January 2000 to December 2007, 61 patients with muscle metastases (80 lesions) were identified on computed tomography (CT). Genital tumours (24.6%) were the most frequent malignancies metastasising into the skeletal musculature, followed by gastrointestinal tumours (21.3%), urological tumours (16.4%), and malignant melanoma (13.1%). Other primary malignancies were rarer, including bronchial carcinoma (8.2%), thyroid gland carcinoma (4.9%), and breast carcinoma (3.3%). In 8.2%, carcinoma of unknown primary was diagnosed.

Results

Skeletal muscle metastases (SMM) were located in the iliopsoas muscle (27.5%), paravertebral muscles (25%), gluteal muscles (16.3%), lower extremity muscles (12.5%), abdominal wall muscles (10%), thoracic wall muscles (5%), and upper extremity muscles (3.8%). Most (76.3%) of the 80 SMM were diagnosed incidentally during routine staging CT examinations, while 23.7% were symptomatic.

Conclusion

Radiologically, SMM presented with five different types of lesions: focal intramuscular masses (type I, 52.5% of SMM), abscess-like intramuscular lesions (type II, 32.5%), diffuse metastatic muscle infiltration (type III, 8.8%), multifocal intramuscular calcification (type IV, 3.7%) and intramuscular bleeding (type V, 2.5%).

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Acknowledgments

We thank Edith Disputh for the careful preparation of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Radiology, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle, Germany

    Alexey Surov, Rolf Peter Spielmann & Curd Behrmann

  2. Department of Pathology, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle, Germany

    Michael Hainz & Hans-Jürgen Holzhausen

  3. Department of Haematology/Oncology, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle, Germany

    Dirk Arnold

  4. Department of Urology, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle, Germany

    Michaela Katzer

  5. Department of Medical Statistics and Controlling, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle, Germany

    Joerg Schmidt

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  1. Alexey Surov
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Correspondence to Alexey Surov.

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Surov, A., Hainz, M., Holzhausen, HJ. et al. Skeletal muscle metastases: primary tumours, prevalence, and radiological features. Eur Radiol 20, 649–658 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00330-009-1577-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00330-009-1577-1

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