Epidemiology of Bone Tumors in Lebanon: a Retrospective Study From 2000 to 2022 at a Tertiary Center

Abstract

Aim: Bone tumors are rare and have an uneven geographic distribution. Methods: 730 patients diagnosed with bone tumors were included in this retrospective analysis. Results: With a 64% rate of malignancy, the most common tumors were metastasis (40%) mostly in the axial skeleton, Osteosarcoma (9%) mostly in the femur, Osteochondroma (8%) mostly in the femur, giant cell tumors (7%) mostly in the knee, and Ewing's sarcoma (6%) mostly in the axial skeleton. Conclusion: Even though a some of the tumors have a predilection for certain localizations in the human body, they may differ in the middle-eastern population. One must also pay attention to the higher rates of malignancies as compared with other cohorts.

Plain Language Summary

With significant morbidity and mortality, bone tumors incidence is low and varies geographically. In our Lebanese population, Seven-hundred-thirty patients with bone tumors were identified with a 64% rate of malignancy with osteosarcoma being the most common primary bone cancer and metastasis being the overall most prevalent bone malignancy. This higher rate of malignancy compared with other populations should be taken into consideration when evaluating Lebanese or Middle eastern patients.

Keywords:

• bone metastasis
• bone tumors
• epidemiology
• Ewing's sarcoma
• Middle-East
• osteosarcoma

Author contributions

M Daher: writing and data collection. Z Zalaquett: writing. M Aoun: writing. E Mekhael: writing and statistics. R Chalhoub: data collection. M Abdo: data collection. M Aoude: data collection. SA Farraj: data collection. A Ghoul: data collection. J Tarchichi: data collection. A Sebaaly: data collection. V Trak-Smayra: data collection. C kesrouani: Data collection. H-R Kourie: supervision and revision. I Ghanem: supervision and revision

Financial & competing interests disclosure

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

Ethical conduct of research

The authors state that they have obtained appropriate institutional review board approval or have followed the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki for all human or animal experimental investigations.