Radiotherapy of bone lesions

Radiotherapy represents a simple and effective palliative treatment of bone lesions. The first aim of this treatment, often combined with orthopedic procedures and medical therapy, is pain relief and improvement of the quality of life. Pain relief is achieved in a short time in about 2/3 of patients and lasting control can be documented in slow-growing tumors with a relatively long life expectancy. Many clinical reports and some randomized studies indicate that compact treatment schedules, consisting of high single fractions in a few days, can achieve the same symptomatic results as prolonged conventional treatments. More recently, multiple daily fractions and half-body irradiation have yielded interesting clinical results in particular clinical situations