Effect of Radiation Therapy Treatment of Palliative Metastatic Breast Cancer using Symptoms Improvement Ratio

Abstract

The value of radiotherapy for palliation is well known to oncologists but not necessarily to other physicians .Using terms such as symptom improvement ratio (SIR) than traditional response rates might be more appropriate in describing the benefits of palliative radiotherapy to other health care professionals. Late detection and spread of the disease in the late stages of breast cancer due to proliferation causes multiple symptoms This study was conducted in the centers of tumors treatment in Sudan, represented in Khartoum oncology Hospital for (RICK ) in the period 2014 to 2017. The study examined the association between Palliative radiotherapy and the improvement of the symptoms associated with metastatic breast cancer. These include metastatic in the spinal cord and associated pain, brain metes and associated symptoms, bone metes , metastic in the lung and finally spread in organs such as liver and others. The study also dealt with the connection between it and the improvement of the standard of life of the patient and toxic and other important factors and was achieved through a set of international standards questionnaire by which the calibration of the result The obtained results enable the oncologist to assess the patient's palliative treatment and his role in the treatment of the case. Palliative radiotherapy regimes improves pain in a significant proportion of patients with MBC . It does not have a beneficial effect on other symptoms or on quality of life. The findings support the hypothesis that radiotherapy is an effective treatment for a V proportion of patients with MBC related pain, with 70% of assessable patients experiencing a clinically meaningful improvement in their pain. Of these, 12.5% had a complete improvement in their pain. There were no specific features that differentiated the complete responders from the other patients though There was no association between pain response and improvement in any other symptoms, therefore, palliative radiotherapy in MBC should only be considered for pain control .also there was significant different between patients who treated in coblat60 and patients treated in linear accelerator .the improvement in cobalt 60 is higher than it in linear accelerator .This clearly demonstrates that cobalt is better than a linear accelerator in cases of palliative therapy.