The clinical manifestations of bone
metastases are diversified while many sites remain asymptomatic at early stage. As the early diagnosis method is not perfect and the early symptoms of
tumor bone
metastasis are not typical, bone
metastasis is not easy to be detected. Therefore, the search for bone
metastasis-related markers is effective for timely detection of
tumor bone
metastases and the development of drugs to inhibit bone
metastases. As a result, bone
metastases can only be diagnosed when symptoms are found, increasing the risk of developing skeletal-related event (SREs), which significantly impairs the patient's quality of life. Therefore, the early diagnosis of bone
metastases is of great importance for the treatment and prognosis of
cancer patients. Changes of bone metabolism indexes appear earlier in bone
metastases, but the traditional biochemical indexes of bone metabolism lack of specificity and could be interfered by many factors, which limits their application in the study of bone
metastases. Some new
biomarkers of bone
metastases have good diagnostic value, such as
proteins, ncRNAs,
circulating tumor cells (CTCs). Therefore, this study mainly reviewed the initial diagnostic
biomarkers of bone
metastases which were expected to provide references for the early detection of bone
metastases.