Metastatic bone tumours.

A total of 24 cases of metastatic bone tumours were encountered over the last 6 years. Majority of these lesions (70.8%) were found in the 4th to 6th decades of life with a slight male preponderance. The axial skeleton was involved in majority of the cases (62.5%), the spine being the commonest site of tumour metastasis. A large proportion of the metastatic bone tumours were adenocarcinomas (62.5%) and the lung was the commonest primary site followed by the breast and large intestine. In 41.7% of the patients the bone metastasis was the initial manifestation of the malignant disease which was subsequently detected after investigations. In 20.8% of the cases the primary tumour remained undetected even after through investigations.