The epidemiological and clinical importance of bone metastases has long been recognised. For example, the incidence of bone metastases in breast and prostate cancers is 70%, whereas it is only 30 to 40% in metastatic lung cancer. In clinical terms, bone metastases have substantial negative effects on the patient's quality of life. Bone metastases have generally received insufficient attention because of the difficulty in quantifying them, which has left them outside the scope of therapeutic...
