"Perhaps the greatest obstacle to improving pain relief following radiation of bone cancer is our limited knowledge regarding mechanisms responsible for decreasing the pain," said lead investigator Denis Clohisy, M.D., professor of orthopedic surgery in the Medical School and Cancer Center member. "Future use of the experimental system described in this research should help accelerate the pace of discovery around these mechanisms and help efforts to reduce the burden of pain suffered by bone cancer patients."
Researchers in this investigation created an experimental model that limited radiation to the site of cancer in mice and then used an established bone pain model, imaging techniques, and histologic evaluations to understand the effects of radiation.
The research demonstrated that a localized, single radiation dose decreased painful behavior and increased limb use, which was associated with a decrease in bone destruction and tumor burden. Treated mice demonstrated greater pain relief and had significantly less bone destruction and tumor burden than untreated mice. Recent studies have demonstrated that tumor burden and bone destruction each correlate with behavioral and neurochemical measures of pain.
Co-authors of this study are Bruce J. Gerbi, Ph.D., Parham Alaei, Ph.D., Patrick W. Mantyh, J.D., Ph.D., Michael Goblirsch, B.A., Wendy E. Mathews, B.S., and Christine Lynch, B.S.
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Contact: Molly Portz
mportz@umn.edu
612-625-2640
University of Minnesota
2-Feb-2004