Bone Metastases: Diagnosis and Treatment

This volume presents recent developments that are gradually improving the prospects for patients with secondary involvement of the skeleton in a primary cancer elsewhere. The morbidity from bone metastases is extensive, and the palliative and supportive treatment that sufferers require for many months or even years constitutes a major health problem. A multidisciplinary approach is essential since a variety of specialists are involved: radiation and medical oncologists, general and orthopaedic surgeons, general physicians, radiologists and nuclear medicine physicians, symptom control and terminal care specialists. The book's editors, themselves authorities in the fields of oncology and bone disease, have brought together experts from all these disciplines to provide comprehensive coverage of metastatic bone disease. They cover the biology and pathophysiology, hypercalcaemia, imaging, assessment of response to treatment, types of treatment (systemic, radiotherapy, surgery), and symptomatic and supportive care. Particularly new approaches included are magnetic resonance imaging, the assessment of skeletal response and isotope therapy.