Short-course radiotherapy effective for painful vertebral bone metastases

Philadelphia, Penn. – A single high dose of radiotherapy is as effective in relieving the pain from vertebral bone metastases as 10 smaller treatments, according to new research from the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) that will be presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting in Orlando on May 31, 2009. RTOG, an NCI-funded national clinical trials group, is a clinical research component of the American College of Radiology.

RTOG researchers previously reported that breast and prostate cancer patients with painful bone metastases who received a single radiotherapy treatment of 8 Gy had the same pain relief and narcotic use three months after treatment as patients who received 10 radiotherapy treatments each consisting of 2 Gy for a total of 30 Gy. They also found that patients who received the 8 Gy regimen reported fewer side effects, although those patients did have to be retreated more often than patients who received the higher dose.

source: University of Michigan Health System