ReviewAdvances in radiation oncology
Single- Versus Multiple-Fraction Radiation Therapy for Painful Bone Metastases: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Nonrandomized Studies.
Review in Advances in radiation oncology. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 13 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pain response after palliative-intent radiotherapy for pancreatic cancer: a systematic review.International journal of clinical oncology · 2026Pooled it
- Prospective feasibility study of diagnostic CT-based simulation-free palliative radiotherapy.Journal of radiation research · 2026Trial
- The impact of relationship between tumor volume and radiation dose on pain relief: are higher doses needed for larger tumors?Journal of radiation research · 2025Observational
- Deterioration of Performance Status during Palliative Radiotherapy Suggests a Significant Short Survival Duration: Indicating the Necessities for Considering Radiotherapy Discontinuation.Current oncology (Toronto, Ont.) · 2024Article
- Bias due to statistical handling of death and reirradiation in the assessment of duration of response after palliative radiotherapy: a scoping review and analysis of clinical data.The British journal of radiology · 2023Article
- Concurrent capecitabine with external beam radiotherapy versus radiotherapy alone in painful bone metastasis of breast cancer origin.Journal of bone oncology · 2021Article
- Palliative radiotherapy for painful lymph node metastases.Radiation oncology (London, England) · 2021Observational
- Patterns of Palliative Radiotherapy Utilization for Patients With Metastatic Breast Cancer in Harare, Zimbabwe.JCO global oncology · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeSingle-fraction radiation therapy (RT) is a convenient and cost-effective regimen for the palliation of painful bone metastases, but is still underused. Randomized controlled trials comparing single- versus multiple-fraction RT are limited by generalizability. We compared the pain response rates after single- versus multiple-fraction RT in nonrandomized studies. METHODS AND MATERIALS: We searched PubMed and Scopus from the inception of each database through August 2018. We sought to identify nonrandomized studies in which data on pain response rates could be extracted for single- and multiple-fraction RT. Our primary outcomes of interest were the overall and complete pain response rates in evaluable patients. The analysis was performed using a random-effects model with the Mantel-Haenszel method.
resultsOf the 3933 articles identified through our search, 9 met our inclusion criteria. Five of 9 included studies did not exclude patients with features of complicated bone metastases. A 1 × 8 Gy radiation schedule was frequently used in single-fraction therapy, and schedules of 5 × 4 Gy and 10 × 3 Gy were frequently used in multiple-fraction therapy. In the 9 studies, the overall response rate was 67% (884 of 1321 patients) for patients in the single-fraction arm and 70% (953 of 1360 patients) for those in the multiple-fraction arm (pooled odds ratio [OR]: 0.85; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.66-1.08). In 5 studies, the complete response rate was 26% (195 of 753 patients) for patients in the single-fraction arm and 35% (289 of 821 patients) for those in the multiple-fraction arm (pooled OR: 0.89; 95% CI, 0.70-1.13).
conclusionsThere were no significant differences in the overall and complete response rates between single- and multiple-fraction RT. The effectiveness of single-fraction regimens was shown in nonrandomized settings, which better reflect daily practice than randomized studies. The CIs for the pooled ORs included clinically meaningful differences, and the study results are inconclusive.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.