Originally published June 25 2005
Radiation found to reduce pain from bone metastases
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Bone pain as a result of bone metastases (cancers that have spread from another site to the bones) may be reduced as much by a short course of radiation as a standard 10-course treatment, an article in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute reports to Cancer Consultants.
A recent article in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute reports that a short course of radiation is equally effective as a standard 10-course treatment for relieving the pain associated with bone metastases.
Bone metastases are currently treated with medications aimed to prevent fractures, as well as chemotherapy and radiation.
Bone metastases can cause moderate to severe pain---radiation therapy has been proven to alleviate some of this pain.
This recent study compared the effects on bone pain of radiation delivered at a single dose of 8Gy with the standard treatment of 30Gy delivered in 10 treatments.
Study participants included men and women diagnosed with breast or prostate cancer, who had one to three sites of moderately to severely painful bone metastases.
Patients were randomly selected to receive either one radiation treatment of 8Gy or 10 30Gy-dose treatments over a two-week period.
The study found that at three months, 33 percent of the patients no longer required pain medications.
The single 8Gy-dose group experienced fewer side effects than the 30Gy-dose group (only 10 percent of the 8Gy-treatment group had mild to moderate side effects versus 17 percent in the 30Gy-dose group).
The 8Gy-treatment group had a complete response rate of 15 percent, while 50 percent showed partial response.
Among the 30Gy treatment group, complete and partial response rates were 18 percent and 48 percent, respectively.
Retreatment rates were significantly higher in the group treated with 8Gy, when compared to the 30Gy treatment group (18 percent versus 9 percent).
Researchers concluded that both regimens were equivalent in terms of pain relief and decreasing the need for pain medications.
However, each approach had a downside: Side effects of the 10-treatment regimen were more frequent, and patients who received the 8Gy dose had higher retreatment rates.
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