Palliative Radiotherapy to Asymptomatic Bone Metastasis: Is It Beneficial or Not? Single Institution Experience

Background: bone metastases are believed to be the complications of cancer occurring in 20-75% of patients with advanced tumors. external beam radiation therapy (ebrt) is recommended in case of symptomatic bone metastases. preventing skeletal-related events (sres) and pain through early treatment of bone metastases is to be studied. we conducted the present study to investigate ebrt in asymptomatic bone metastases.method: a retrospective cohort study for patients with bone metastases without symptoms, who were treated with ebrt, formed group a. group b comprised the patients who did not receive ebrt. the time from diagnosis to onset of the 1st sre was recorded for both groups. the follow-up period was three years. pain was moderate to severe when rated as 5/10.results: asymptomatic bone metastases were found in 200 patients. they were free from pain or pathological fractures. they were divided into two groups of a and b. the overall demographics and disease characteristics were well-balanced for the two groups. the two groups were more or less similar concerning the mean age and sex, with no statistically significant differences; the mean age in groups a and b was 57 years. for both groups, the mean time from the occurrence of asymptomatic bony metastases to the onset of sre were about 33 and 19 months for groups a and b, respectively, which is statistically significant.conclusion: prophylactic ebrt of metastatic breast and prostate cancer patients should be considered in order to delay the onset of sres and improve the quality of life.