With Applications Beyond Vertebroplasty, Bone Cement Offers Pain Relief for Cancer Patients
BY LAUREN UZDIENSKI, APRIL 6, 2009
Patients suffering crippling pain from metastatic cancer or even "benign" conditions like rheumatoid arthritis may find relief in a minimally-invasive treatment called osteoplasty. Similar to vertebroplasty, osteoplasty is the injection of bone cement into cancerous lesions in the skeleton, and the treatment has proven so effective in certain study populations that it has been dubbed the "Lazarus effect."
Researchers presented data on osteoplasty at last month's Society for Interventional Radiology annual meeting. In an 81-patient study out of Italy, the largest cohort on the treatment so far, mean VAS scores dropped from 8.8 (+/-1.4) to 1.8 (+/-2.1) within 24 hours of the procedure. 79% were able to stop taking narcotics, and 53% could stop taking other pain medication. Bones treated in the study included pelvic, femur, sacrum, ribs, humerus, scapula, tibia, pubis and knee.
The study's authors emphasized that osteoplasty is not a curative treatment, but a palliative effort to reduce pain and raise quality of life. It also highlights a less common use and broader markets for bone cements, as well as heightened interest in interventional radiology and less-invasive treatments.
