Radiation Therapy for Bone Metastases

Treating Bone Metastases

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• What are bone metastases?
• Symptoms and signs of bone metastases
• Treating bone metastases
• What types of specialists will I see?
• What is radiation therapy?
• Understanding external beam radiation therapy for bone metastases
• Possible Side Effects
• Patient care during treatment
• To learn more
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• The goal of treatment for bone metastases is to control pain or other symptoms and improve your quality of life. In some cases, these treatments can also help you live longer with your cancer.
• Your doctor may prescribe medicines called bisphosphonates. These drugs slow the bone loss caused by cancer to reduce the risk of bone fracture and pain.
• Your doctor may also prescribe chemotherapy. These are drugs that kill cancer cells.
• Your natural hormones can sometimes encourage cancer cells to grow. For example, in women, the hormone estrogen can help some breast cancers grow. Your doctor may prescribe hormone therapy to reduce your hormone levels and try to stop the bone tumor from growing.
• Radiation therapy uses high-energy X-rays to injure and destroy cancer cells.
• After finishing radiation treatment, it may take one or more weeks before the radiation is able to shrink the tumor to stop the pain.
• In selected circumstances, your doctor will place a radioactive substance into your bloodstream. This is called a radiopharmaceutical and it works to attack cancer cells in all bones.
• If the cancer is likely to break a bone or the tumor causes pressure on your spinal cord, sometimes your doctor will recommend surgery before radiation with the goal of providing more relief from symptoms and preserving normal function.
• In most cases, treatment for bone metastases will not “cure” your cancer. However, modern treatments allow doctors to control the bone metastases, allowing many patients to improve quality of life and to live months or years longer. For you, this time will depend on where the original cancer started, where else it has spread and how well it responds to treatments rather than on the actual number of bone metastases.