title: Modern Palliative Treatments for Metastatic Bone Disease: Awareness of Advantages, Disadvantages, and Guidance.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Metastatic disease is the most common malignancy of the bone. Prostate, breast, lung, kidney, and thyroid cancer account for 80% of skeletal metastases. Bone metastases are associated with significant skeletal morbidity including severe bone pain, pathologic fractures, spinal cord or nerve roots compression, and malignant hypercalcemia. These events compromise greatly the quality of life of the patients. The treatment of cancer patients with bone metastases is mostly aimed at palliation.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  This article aims to present these palliative treatments for the patients with bone metastases, summarize the clinical applications, and review the techniques and results.
  
  
  METHODS
  It gives an extensive overview of the possibilities of palliation in patients with metastatic cancer to the bone.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Currently, modern treatments are available for the palliative management of patients with metastatic bone disease. These include modern radiation therapy, chemotherapy, embolization, electrochemotherapy, radiofrequency ablation, and high-intensity focused ultrasound. As such it is of interest for all physicians with no experience with these developments to make palliative procedures safer and more reliable.
authors.affiliation: *First Department of Orthopaedics, ATTIKON University Hospital, Athens University Medical School, Athens, Greece†Department of Orthopaedics, University of Bologna, Istituto Ortopedico Rizzoli, Bologna, Italy.
authors.forename: Andreas F
authors.initials: AF
authors.lastname: Mavrogenis
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Angelini
authors.forename: Christos
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Vottis
authors.forename: Elisa
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Pala
authors.forename: Teresa
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Calabrò
authors.forename: Panayiotis J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Papagelopoulos
authors.forename: Pietro
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Ruggieri
mesh_terms: D015901:Angiography, Digital Subtraction; D001364:Awareness; D001859:Bone Neoplasms / Q000523:psychology* / Q000556:secondary / Q000628:therapy*; D006801:Humans; D010166:Palliative Care / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards*; D011788:Quality of Life