Cryoablation of Bone Tumors

Abstract

Bone and soft tissue metastases can give rise to complications including pain, decreased quality of life, and decreased mobility. The standard palliative treatment for patients with metastatic disease is external beam radiation therapy. When this fails to give pain relief or when relief is transient, analgesics (opioids and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) are typically optimized although inadequate pain relief or side effects are often present for these patients. Image-guided percutaneous cryoablation of focal painful metastases has emerged as an effective focal treatment for patients with painful metastatic disease. This treatment offers clinically significant reduction of pain, an improvement in their quality of life, and reduction in the use of analgesic medications by these patients.