[Radiotherapy of vertebral hemangiomas]

The paper presents the analysis of results of treatment with radiotherapy of 14 cases of vertebral hemangiomas. All patients were irradiated in accordance with conventional schedule fractionated doses, using 2 Gy per fraction. The total radiation dose amounted to 20 Gy (1 case), 24 Gy (4 cases) and 30 Gy (9 cases). The degree of pain relief and lesion reossification was assessed 1 months and 6 months after completion of radiotherapy. Complete pain relief 1 month post radiotherapy was noted in 5 cases (on average patients claimed that radiotherapy resulted in a 70% decrease of pain syndromes). Six months post radiotherapy complete pain relief was noted in 8 cases (on average patients reported a 90% decrease in pain). Signs of reossification were observed in cases 6 months after treatment. No correlation was noted neither between the degree of pain relief and reossification, nor between the total delivered dose and the degree of pain relief. The obtained results allow to conclude that conventionally fractionated radiotherapy (using 20-24 Gy as total dose) is a good method of analgetic treatment of vertebral hemangiomas probably based on the anti-inflammatory effect of radiation.