Treatment
The use of anesthetics within the actual bone has been a common treatment for several years. This method provides a direct approach using analgesics to relieve pain sensations.
Another commonly used method for treating bone pain is radiotherapy, which can be safely administered in low doses. Radiotherapy utilizes radioactive isotopes and other atomic particles to damage the DNA in cells, thus leading to cell death. By targeting cancer tumors, radiotherapy can lead to decrease in tumor size and even tumor destruction. A form of radiotherapy that is often used in cases of bone cancer is systemic radioisotope therapy, where the radioisotopes target sections of the bone specifically undergoing metastasis.
In the case of bone fractures, surgical treatment is generally the most effective. Analgesics can be used in conjunction with surgery to help ease pain of damaged bone.
Read more about this topic: Bone Pain
Famous quotes containing the word treatment:
“Our treatment of both older people and children reflects the value we place on independence and autonomy. We do our best to make our children independent from birth. We leave them all alone in rooms with the lights out and tell them, “Go to sleep by yourselves.” And the old people we respect most are the ones who will fight for their independence, who would sooner starve to death than ask for help.”
—Margaret Mead (1901–1978)
“I will use treatment to help the sick according to my ability and judgment, but never with a view to injury and wrongdoing. Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course. Similarly, I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause abortion. I will keep pure and holy both my life and my art.”
—Hippocrates (c. 460–c. 370 B.C.)
“Any important disease whose causality is murky, and for which treatment is ineffectual, tends to be awash in significance.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)