Metastatic patterns in adenocarcinoma

Unique metastatic patterns cited in the literature often arise from anecdotal clinical observations and autopsy reports. The authors analyzed clinical data from a large number of patients with histologically confirmed, distant-stage adenocarcinoma to evaluate metastatic patterns.

Tumor registry data were collected between 1994-1996 on 11 primary tumor sites and 15 metastatic sites from 4399 patients. The primary and metastatic sites were cross-tabulated in various ways to identify patterns, and the authors developed algorithms by using multinomial logistic regression analysis to predict the locations of primary tumors based on metastatic patterns.