Painful Metastases Involving Bone: Feasibility of Percutaneous CT- and US-guided Radio-frequency Ablation

Abstract

RF ablation of painful osteolytic metastases is safe, and the relief of pain is substantial.

Percutaneous ablation for bone and soft tissue metastases—why cryoablation?

“…Of these methods, RFA has been evaluated most carefully. A multi-center study found that RFA significantly reduces pain in patients with pain due to metastatic disease that was refractory to standard treatments [9][10][11]. A total of 59/62 patients (95%) experienced a clinically significant drop in pain (≥2 point drop in worst pain in a 24 h period).…”

“…Despite the use of only a single freeze-thaw-freeze cycle with the average use of 2.8 cryoprobes for the procedure, the time necessary for this procedure was greater than that necessary for the treatment of similar patients with RFA. In a prior study using RFA, the average ablation time was 46 min, with an average of 2 h and 14 min in the CT suite and an average of 4.5 electrode needle placements [10].…”

Treatment of Bone Tumours by Radiofrequency Thermal Ablation

“…4,31 It can be applied to reduce both the pain and the morphine dose in these patients. It is mainly indicated for patients with osteolytic or mixed-type painful bone metastases who are not suitable candidates for or have not responded to other standard forms of therapy.…”

125 I Brachytherapy in the Palliation of Painful Bone Metastases from Lung Cancer After Failure or Rejection of Conventional Treatments

“…Recent studies have shown that multiple minimally invasive, image-guided ablation techniques are emerging as safe, efficacious, and durable palliative therapies [9,10]. Radiofrequency (RF) ablation has been the most studied thermal ablative technique demonstrating significantly reduced pain in patients who were not palliated by conventional therapies [11].…”