Randomized Trial of Short- Versus Long-Course Radiotherapy for Palliation of Painful Bone Metastases

Radiation therapy is effective in palliating pain from bone metastases. We investigated whether 8 Gy deliv-ered in a single treatment fraction provides pain and narcotic relief that is equivalent to that of the standard treatment course of 30 Gy delivered in 10 treatment fractions over 2 weeks.

A prospective, phase III randomized study of palliative radiation therapy was conducted for patients with breast or prostate cancer who had one to three sites of painful bone metastases and moderate to severe pain. Pa-tients were randomly assigned to 8 Gy in one treatment frac-tion (8-Gy arm) or to 30 Gy in 10 treatment fractions (30-Gy arm). Pain relief at 3 months after randomization was evalu-ated with the Brief Pain Inventory. The Wilcoxon – Mann – Whitney test was used to compare response to treatment in terms of pain and narcotic relief between the two arms and