Background: Bone is the most common site of metastasis in cancer. Bone metastasis is a devastating condition that can have a negative impact on the lives of patients with advanced cancer in many ways. Although the overall incidence of bone metastasis (BM) is unknown, BMs are a frequent complication in patients with advanced cancer. Patients may experience limitations in the activities of daily living (ADL), decreases in quality of life (QOL) and threat of survival due to bone metastases. Thus in our study we focused to assess the QOL of patients suffering with metastatic bone disease. Aim: To study the QOL in patients with metastatic bone disease receiving Bisphosphonates and External Beam RadiationTherapy. Methodology: A Prospective observational study was carried out in Government General Hospital, Guntur for duration of 6months i.e., October 2017 to March 2018 after obtaining approval from Institutional Ethics Committee. The Patients were screened based on inclusion and exclusion criteria. Patients who satisfy inclusion criteria were included in the study after obtaining informed consent. The data was collected in the specifically designed data collection form. Assessment of quality of life was performed using EORTC QLQ BM 22 questionnaire which consists of 22 questions categorized into 4 groups, representing painful sites (Q1 to Q5), pain characteristics (Q6 to Q8), functional interference (Q9 to Q16) and psychosocial aspects (Q17 to Q22) respectively. The obtained results were tabulated and interpreted using suitable statistical software (SPSS version 22.00, Paired t-test). Results: 36 patients who met the inclusion criteria were included in the study. On reviewing the demographic data it was found that bone metastasis was found to be more predominant in females within the age group of 51-70 years. Our study also revealed that there was no significant family history noted in patients who developed metastasis. In our current study it was found that patients suffering with breast cancer, lung cancer and prostate cancer are more likely to develop bone metastasis. We also assessed quality of life of patients suffering with bone metastasis being treated with Bisphosphonates and EBRT (upto 10#, 30Gy) and noted that, painful site, painful characteristic and psycho social status was significantly improved (p <0.0001***)from baseline after receiving zoledronate and EBRT therapy. Conclusion: Based on the results obtained our study strongly concludes that use of Bisphosphonates and EBRT is effective in improving QOL of patients with bone metastasis.
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