[Pain therapy in multiple bone metastases in breast carcinoma with rhenium 186 HEDP]

Therapeutic means for patients with disseminated painful bone metastases in breast cancer are strongly limited. There is a big need of an effective and well tolerated therapy. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of rhenium-186 HEDP for pain palliation in patients with bone metastases in breast cancer. 17 patients with painful bone metastases taking analgesics received one or more injections of 1295 MB9 rhenium-186 HEDP. In 59% of the patients the therapy resulted in a significant reduction of pain. The duration of pain relief partially hold on up to nine weeks. The main side effects of therapy were a short decrease of platelets and leucocytes and an increase of pain for 1-2 days. As conclusion we found out that therapy with rhenium-186 HEDP can be used complementarily to analgesic therapy and radiation in patients with painful disseminated bone metastases in breast cancer.