Abstract
Metastatic disease to the bone is a common manifestation of advanced cancer, and can
result in pain, pathologic fractures, hypercalcemia, and overall functional compromise.
External beam radiation is a proven, highly efficacious, and noninvasive therapy that
can provide symptomatic relief from painful osseous lesions. When deciding upon the
best treatment regimen, it is important to consider patient factors such as overall
life expectancy, performance status, disease burden, and site of osseous metastatic
pain. Determination of best treatment ideally requires multidisciplinary input from
radiologists, medical oncologists, surgeons, pain management, and palliative care
specialists together with radiation oncologists.
Keywords
palliative - radiation therapy - bone metastasis - interventional radiology
