Assessment of the usefulness of hemibody irradiation in painful bone metastasis.

Bone pain due to skeletal metastasis causes significant morbidity among cancer patients. A single large hemibody radiation field is shown to be effective in alleviation of pain for patients with wide-spread bone metastasis. Fifty documented cases of disseminated bone metastasis due to malignancy were evaluated to assess the efficacy of hemibody irradiation for pain control. Intensity of the pain was scored according to the 10th visual analogue score. The upper and/or lower segment of the body was exposed to a radiation dose of 6 Gy and 8 Gy respectively in single fraction applying extended SSD-technique, using a telecobalt unit. The sample consisted of 23 male and 27 female patients with a median age of 48 years. The primary malignancy was distributed as breast, myeloma, prostate, lymphoma and miscellaneous tumours. Thirteen patients were offered upper hemibody irradiation, 21 cases lower hemibody, and 16 patients were offered sequential double hemibody irradiation. The mean radiation field size was 2000 cm2. Thirty per cent of the patients achieved complete and 70% achieved good partial pain relief within 24 to 36 hours post-treatment and the relief was maintained for 2 to 3 months. The benefit of hemibody irradiation in disseminated bone metastasis with pain is described.