title: When Palliative Treatment Achieves More Than Palliation: Instances of Long-term Survival after Palliative Radiotherapy.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Palliative radiotherapy aims at symptom alleviation and improvement of quality of life. It may be effective in conferring a reasonable quantum of local control, as well as possibly prolonging survival on the short term. However, there can be rare instances where long-term survival, or even cure, results from palliative radiotherapy, which mostly uses sub-therapeutic doses.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To categorize and characterize the patients with long-term survival and/or cure after palliative radiotherapy.
  
  
  METHODS
  This study is a retrospective analysis of hospital records of patients treated with palliative radiotherapy from 2001 to 2006 at the Regional Cancer Centre, Shimla.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Of the analyzed 963 patients who received palliative radiotherapy, 2.4% (n = 23) survived at least 5 years, with a large majority of these surviving patients (73.9%, n = 17) being free of disease.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In addition to providing valuable symptom relief, palliative radiotherapy utilizing sub-therapeutic doses may, in a small proportion of patients, bestow long-term survival, and possibly cure. Rationally, such a favorable, but rare outcome cannot be expected with supportive care alone.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiation Therapy and Oncology, Regional Cancer Centre, Indira Gandhi Medical College, Shimla, Himachal Pradesh - 171001, India.
authors.forename: Madhup
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rastogi
authors.forename: Swaroop
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Revannasiddaiah
authors.forename: Manoj K
authors.initials: MK
authors.lastname: Gupta
authors.forename: Rajeev K
authors.initials: RK
authors.lastname: Seam
authors.forename: Priyanka
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Thakur
authors.forename: Manish
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gupta
keywords: Cure after palliative radiotherapy; Long-term survival after palliative radiotherapy; Palliative radiation therapy; Palliative radiotherapy; Therapeutic nihilism