Metastatic tumour of the hand - Three new cases and a literature review

Abstract

Metastatic tumours of the hand are rare, and therefore, is the subject of only a few publications in the literature. We report on three new cases along with a retrospective and descriptive study with file and literature analysis dating from 1900 to 2017, which reported on 337 studies. To perform the statistical analysis, ordinary lease square regression was used to group the metastases into distal phalanx, proximal/middle phalanx, thumb, hand and carpus. We found 564 metastases at the hand for a total of 482 patients. Of the reported cases, 60% were male. The average age was 59 years. The main primary cancers were lung cancer (40%), followed by gastrointestinal (19%), genito-urinary (13%), gynaecological (11%) and ear, nose and throat (6%) cancers. The mean survival time was 7.2 months. Fifty-nine per cent was bone metastasis, 18% tissue metastasis and 3% cutaneous metastasis. In 20% of cases, the type of metastasis was not mentioned. Of all the tissue metastases, 47 (54%) were subungual and in that group, the thumb was the finger most commonly affected. Overall, metastases most commonly appeared in the distal phalanx, which can be explained by a greater vascularisation as well as microtraumatisms. Survival was independent of the epidemiological criteria and of the location and type of metastasis. Patients with primary urological cancer lived on average 3 months longer than patients with other types of primary cancers.

Keywords: Cancer; Hand; Metastases; Review article; Tumour.