Advances in understanding cancers with bone involvement

Bone metastasizing and/or bone growing malignancies are a high unmet medical need. In breast and prostate cancer, bone is the most common site of metastasis and 75-90% of advanced stage patients develop bone metastases. Multiple myeloma induced bone disease affects 80-90% of patients with symptoms similar to those of bone metastases and disrupt normal bone remodeling. On the other side, osteosarcoma is the most common primary malignant bone tumor, characterized by the production of abnormal bone tissue by cancerous cells.

Bone metastases are associated with significant morbidity and decreased quality of life, with only 5% of patients being alive 5 years after diagnosis of bone metastases. Skeletal-related events (SREs) affect about 50% of patients with bone metastases and 80% of patients with multiple myeloma. Common SREs include pathological fractures, spinal cord compression, hypercalcemia and severe bone pain.

In bone metastasizing cancers and multiple myeloma, current treatment options consist of the same therapy that the patient received for the primary tumor, such as chemotherapy, hormonal therapy, targeted therapies, radiopharmaceuticals and/or radiation therapy. For the prevention of SREs, patients receive bisphosphonates or denosumab. All current treatments have limited efficacy or are limited in treatment duration, creating a need to develop new therapies specifically for patients with advanced disease with skeletal involvement.

The aim of this Research Topic is to highlight the clinical problem of bone metastasizing and bone growing malignancies. In order to develop effective therapies for bone metastasizing or bone growing malignancies, breakthrough basic science is needed. This includes identifying novel targets that are expressed in tumors growing in bone (marrow) microenvironment and exploring mechanisms by which tumor cells interact with bone cells. Additionally, it requires developing biologically relevant preclinical models that mimic tumor growth in the bone metastatic microenvironment and demonstrating effects of novel therapies specifically on bone metastasizing and bone growing malignancies.

For this Research Topic, we invite papers for submission especially in the following areas:

- Novel preclinical models for bone metastasizing or bone growing malignancies

- New target discoveries with high quality basic science

- Mechanistic studies for understanding interactions in the metastatic microenvironment

- Translational studies to close the gap to clinical use of novel therapeutic modalities

- Data on novel therapies currently under development

We invite colleagues carrying out research in these areas to contribute any type of Research or Review article for the Research Topic to raise awareness of the high unmet medical need of bone metastasizing and bone growing malignancies.




Please note: Manuscripts consisting solely of bioinformatics, computational analysis, or predictions of public databases which are not accompanied by validation (independent clinical or patient cohort, or biological validation in vitro or in vivo, which are not based on public databases) are not suitable for publication in this journal.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Clinical Trial
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Clinical Trial
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: Bone metastasis, Bone malignancies, Skeletal-related events (SREs), Bone microenvironment, Multiple myeloma, Novel therapies

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.