Introduction
In solid tumours, bone metastasis most commonly happen in prostate, breast and lung cancers.
In vertebra spine, bone metastasis can cause catastrophic compression fracture (bone fracture that compresses the spinal cord) which leads to:
- paraplegia (paralysis of both lower legs)
- quadriplegia (paralysis of both upper and lower limbs if compression fracture happened at higher levels; cervical spine)
- sciatica/ neuropathic pain (severe current-like pain due to compression of nerve roots)
Bone metastasis in weight bearing limbs (legs) or pelvis, due to the heavy burden, can easily cause severe pain or pathological fracture.
Treatment Plan for Bone Metastasis
Management of bone metastasis is a team effort which includes orthopaedic surgeons, clinical oncologist, physicians, physiotherapist, occupational therapist and patient’s family members/ carer
Any impending fracture/ pathological fracture?
- Especially in weight bearing area such as femur/ thigh bone, there is high likelihood of impending fracture.
- It’s better to anticipate problem and refer to our orthopaedic surgeon for prophylactic instrumentation and stabilisation.
- Unfortunately, not all patients will benefit from this procedure, especially those who are already weak and bed bound. We actually referred to orthopaedics a lot but only a few will undergo surgery (another issue is the high cost of implants).
- In post-op patient, palliative radiotherapy is given to consolidate treatment and to kill off cancer cells from continuously weakening the bone.
- If not operable, palliative radiotherapy will help to reduce pain, decreasing tumor mass which can relief compression of spinal nerve roots and prevention of fractures (after sterilising/ killing all cancer cells at radiated field).
How is the pain control?
Patient in bone metastasis can happened due to bone fracture(s), cord compression on nerve roots or due to expanding bony metastasis stretching bony cortex.
Pain affects patient’s daily activities, especially sleeping and movements.
Due to pain also, patient is afraid to move about/ ambulate and this will lead to another problem; deep vein thrombosis (DVT)/ blood clots in deep veins in the legs.
Starting patient on opioids derivatives (syrup morphine, oxycodone, oxynorm) and slowly increasing the dose until pain is well controlled.
Patient need to use the pain scoring system (1-3, 4-6, 7-10, mild-moderate-severe pain) to communicate with doctors.
If usage of opioids is very high (need high dosages) or patient unable to tolerate side effects of opioids (nausea, giddiness), palliative radiotherapy can also help to reduce pain caused by bone metastasis.
When pain recur, re-treatment with palliative radiotherapy is still possible.
Any hypercalcemia?
- High calcium which can leads to lethargy, muscle ache, cramps, nausea, vomiting, constipation, abdominal pain and in severe derangement can cause confusion and disorientation.
- Monthly treatment with biphosphonate or denosumab will be able to control hypercalcemia easily, plus also strengthening bones and reduce skeletal related events (SREs).
Skeletal related events (SREs): pathologic fracture, spinal cord compression, necessity for radiation to bone (for pain or impending fracture) or surgery to bone.
Strategies to optimise patient’s independence
Physiotherapist and occupational therapist referral to help patients to optimise their independence and to accomplish their daily activity.
In patient with paraplegia (weakness) of the limbs, we will refer for muscle strengthening exercise to regain ambulation/ walking.
For patients with paralysis of the limbs, the focus is on prevention of muscle contracture/ permanent shortening of muscles, which causes stiffness/ frozen joints.
Palliative Radiotherapy for Bone Metastasis
Radiotherapy for bone metastasis
- efficacious (able to reduce painful bone metastasis, prevent fractures, consolidate treatment after surgery and reduce size of cancer mass)
- non-invasive, convenient
- quick treatment (around 10 minutes or less each fraction, depending on fraction size)
- cost-effective
- minimal to no side effects (occasional flare in pain can be controlled well with opioids or steroids)
- re-treatment possible
Palliative radiotherapy is normally given in single fraction (8Gy x 1) or short-hypofractionation (20Gy/5#, 30Gy/10#, 40Gy/15#, etc.)
Curative Radiotherapy for Bone Metastasis
In patient with oligo-metastasis to the bone/ vertebra body and long life expectancy, advanced radiotherapy technique (stereotactic body radiotherapy, SBRT or spine stereotactic radiosurgery, SRS) can offer ‘curative’ treatment.
Oligometastases is defined by a state of limited systemic metastatic tumors for which local ablative therapy could be curative.
Another definition is disease stage with a limited number of clinically detectable metastases. (Hellman S, 1995)
By delivering highly focused and ablative dose to solitary bone metastasis at vertebra spine, all cancer cells at the irradiated area will die off and remineralisation of the vertebra will occur.
It’s ‘surgery’ without knife, without cutting anything out and without any need for expensive implants.
#drbhnglatest
