RADIOTHERAPY FOR BONE PAIN

Painful bane metastases are a common problem for cancer patients. Alth ough current evidence supports the use of a single fraction of radioth erapy as the treatment of choice, many radiotherapists, for a variety of reasons, continue to use fractionated regimens. Over one six month period 105 patients received external beam irradiation for painful bon e metastases at the Royal London Hospital (RLH). Thirty-one per cent o f the patients were aged 70 or over. The treatment of 97 of these pati ents was assessed. They had a total of 280 sites treated over the cour se of their disease. Fifty-nine per cent of sites treated received a f ractionated course of radiotherapy. Site significantly influenced frac tionation. Overall response rates of 82% were achieved. Fractionation did not appear to influence this. Ten patients received large field ir radiation. Fifteen patients had five or more sites irradiated, of whom only one received hemibody irradiation.