Medical management of metastatic bone disease

Clinical utility of 188Rhenium-hydroxyethylidene-1,1-diphosphonate as a bone pain palliative in multiple malignancies

¹⁸⁸Rhenium-hydroxyethylidene-1,1-diphosphonate (¹⁸⁸Re-HEDP) is a clinically established radiopharmaceutical for bone pain palliation of patients with metastatic bone cancer. Herein, the effectiveness of ¹⁸⁸Re-HEDP for the palliation of painful bone metastases was investigated in an uncontrolled initial trial in 48 patients with different types of advanced cancers. A group of 48 patients with painful bone metastases of lung, prostate, breast, renal, and bladder cancer was treated with 2.96–4.44 GBq of ¹⁸⁸Re-HEDP. The overall response rate in this group of patients was 89.5%, and their mean visual analog scale score showed a reduction from 9.1 to 5.3 (P < 0.003) after 1 week posttherapy. The patients did not report serious adverse effects either during intravenous administration or within 24 h postadministration of ¹⁸⁸Re-HEDP. Flare reaction was observed in 54.2% of patients between day 1 and day 3. There was no correlation between flare reaction and response to therapy (P < 0.05). Although bone marrow suppression was observed in patients receiving higher doses of ¹⁸⁸Re-HEDP, it did not result in any significant clinical problems. The present study confirmed the clinical utility and cost-effectiveness of ¹⁸⁸Re-HEDP for palliation of painful bone metastases from various types of cancer in developing countries.

Human absorbed dose estimation for a new (175)Yb-phosphonate based on rats data: Comparison with similar bone pain palliation agents

In this work, the absorbed dose to human organs for (175)Yb-BPAMD was evaluated based on the biodistribution studies in rats. The results showed that the bone surface would receive the highest absorbed dose after injection of (175)Yb-BPAMD with 13.32mGy/MBq, while the other organs receive insignificant absorbed dose. Also, the comparison of (175)Yb-BPAMD with other therapeutic phosphonate complexes demonstrated noticeable characteristics for this new agent. Generally, based on the obtained results, (175)Yb-BPAMD can be considered as a promising agent for bone pain palliative therapy in near future.

Clinical and genetic factors related to cancer-induced bone pain and bone pain relief

OBJECTIVE

The study objective was to evaluate whether there are clinical or genetic differences between patients with cancer-induced bone pain (CIBP) and patients with non-CIBP, and, in the CIBP group, in those with good versus poor opioid response.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

A total of 2,294 adult patients with cancer who were receiving opioids for moderate or severe pain were included in the European Pharmacogenetic Opioid Study. Pain intensity and pain relief were measured using the Brief Pain Inventory. Linkage disequilibrium of 112 single nucleotide polymorphisms was evaluated in 25 candidate genes, and 43 haplotypes were assessed. Correlations among demographical factors, disease-related factors, genetic factors, CIBP, and pain relief were analyzed by logistic regression models corrected for multiple testing. Patients with bone metastases and bone/soft tissue pain were defined as having prevalent bone pain (CIBP population). This population was compared with patients who had other types of cancer pain (non-CIBP).

RESULTS

A total of 577 patients (26.2%) had CIBP, and 1,624 patients (73.8%) had non-CIBP. Patients with CIBP had more breakthrough cancer pain episodes (64.2% vs. 56.4%, p = .001), had significantly higher pain interference in "walking ability in the past 24 hours" (p < .0001), used more adjuvant drugs (84.1% vs. 78.3%, p = .003), and had a higher, albeit nonsignificant, median overall survival (3.8 vs. 2.9 months, p = .716) than patients with non-CIBP. None of the examined haplotypes exceeded p values corrected for multiple testing for the investigated outcomes.

CONCLUSION

Patients with CIBP who were taking opioids had a clinical profile slightly different from that of the non-CIBP group. However, no specific genetic pattern emerged for CIBP versus non-CIBP or for responsive versus nonresponsive patients with CIBP.

Prognostic role of en-bloc resection and late onset of bone metastasis in patients with bone-seeking carcinomas of the kidney, breast, lung, and prostate: SSG study on 672 operated skeletal metastases

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

In metastatic disease, decisions regarding potential surgery require reliable data about the patient's survival. In this study, we evaluated different prognostic factors and their impact in four common primary tumors causing bone metastases.

METHODS

Data were acquired from the Scandinavian Sarcoma Group (SSG) metastasis registry. The patients underwent surgery between July 1999 and July 2009. This study included breast, prostate, lung, and kidney cancer cases, with a total of 672 operated non-spinal metastases. Differences in prognostic factors were evaluated using the Kaplan-Meier method with long-rank test. Cox regression multivariate analysis was performed to identify statistically independent prognostic factors.

RESULTS

Significant factors affecting survival were the presence of organ metastases, overall heath status, and disease load. In kidney cancer, en bloc resection of solitary metastases was associated with a significant fourfold longer survival compared to intralesional surgery. Preoperative radiotherapy was associated with higher complication and reoperation rates.

CONCLUSIONS

This data summary is important tool for clinicians to evaluate survival and choose treatment options for patients suffering from metastatic bone disease.

Genes, molecules and patients--emerging topics to guide clinical pain research

This review selectively explores some areas of pain research that, until recently, have been poorly understood. We have chosen four topics that relate to clinical pain and we discuss the underlying mechanisms and related pathophysiologies contributing to these pain states. A key issue in pain medicine involves crucial events and mediators that contribute to normal and abnormal pain signaling, but remain unseen without genetic, biomarker or imaging analysis. Here we consider how the altered genetic make-up of familial pains reveals the human importance of channels discovered by preclinical research, followed by the contribution of receptors as stimulus transducers in cold sensing and cold pain. Finally we review recent data on the neuro-immune interactions in chronic pain and the potential targets for treatment in cancer-induced bone pain.