Strontium-89 (89Sr) analgesia for rare thymic carcinoid tumor with bony metastases.

The authors report the cases of two patients in whom strontium-89 (89Sr) was used to relieve diffuse metastatic bone pain. The type of cancer involved, thymic carcinoid tumor, is itself rare and the risk of its metastasizing to the bone is very low. Both patients showed a measure of response to treatment, suggesting that this analgesic method has value for some patients. The marked benefit of one patient for a total of 9 months was attributable to two 89Sr injections, whereas the other patient improved for only 5 weeks after one injection.