Shorter course of radiotherapy useful in palliative care

Reported by Susan Aldridge, PhD, medical journalist

One treatment, rather than ten, of radiotherapy is effective in treating bone metastases in cancer.
Patients with solid tumors, such as in the lung, breast and prostate, may develop painful metastases in the bones. Usually radiotherapy given in ten daily sessions will provide relief in 50 to 80 per cent of patients. But a shorter treatment course might be easier on the patient and their family.

Researchers at the Lutheran General Cancer Center, Park Ridge, Illinois, assigned nearly 900 patients with bone metastases to either one or ten radiotherapy treatments. At three months, both treatments had provided equivalent pain relief. The findings suggest that it is possible to reduce the course of radiotherapy without compromising the comfort of the patient needing palliative care.

Source
Journal of the National Cancer Institute 1st June 2005 Volume 97 pages 798-804