Palliative treatment: selective arterial embolisation for bone metastases.

Treatment options in patients with bone metastases are mostly aimed at palliation. The goals of treatment in these patients are pain control, prevention and treatment of fractures, maintenance of independence and prevention of tumor progression, and improvement of quality of remaining life [1,2]. Traditional palliative treatments include surgery, if the metastatic lesion is accessible, and/or external beam radiation therapy [3,4]. However, all metastatic lesions are progressive, causing bone failure by producing angiogenic and bone-reabsorbing factors [4]. In addition, most, if not all metastatic lesions are hypervascular. Some lesions such as renal and thyroid metastases are highly hypervascular [5–7]. This may cause technical difficulties with respect to the extent of surgery and primary stability for pain relief [2,8,9].