Radiation to bone mets- or not ?

[mts]

Relating to my previous thread -- if a person has bone mets, and the pain is a 4 out of 10- what is the usual treatment ?

If you don't have pain, is radiation to the sites helpful or not ?

Maria

[Lani]

importantly when the size of the bone lesion puts the bone at risk of fracture
or the spinal cord at risk of injury from tumor pressing on it.

I would think they would try bisphosphonates like Zometa first and see how she responds unless there is a risk of spinal cord injury or fracture, but I am not an oncologist.

Rather thantrying to double-guess them, I think letting them biopsy it and present a plan of attack based on more information would seem reasonable.

I salute you for trying to get her all the information ahead of time so she is prepared for all possibilities, but think the additional info available when she knows which bone, how large the mets and what the features of the tumor are will help the decision-making

Hope this helped

[jones7676]

I cannot tell you what is best for you. I had radiation to a large met in my right femur and it did relieve the pain - although the pamphlet they gave me emphasized that there was not guarantee it would. Radiation was not used on the met until it grew large enough to risk my bone breaking. Good luck making your decisions