Quality of life improvement in patients diagnosed with hormone refractory prostate cancer with bone metastasis as a result of chemotherapy and the administration of zoledronic acid

ABSTRACT

Bone metastases occur in patients who have developed prostate cancer, and severely compromise the patient's quality of life. Here, we evaluated the quality of life in our inpatients diagnosed with prostate cancer with multiple bone metastases and bone pain. In our study, we evaluated pain using a pain diary, investigated the palliative effects of opioid dose, and assessed the quality of life using SF-36. The administration of chemotherapy and zoledronic acid (ZA) resulted in pain palliation, an anti tumor effect and improvements in the quality of life. We suggest that the administration of ZA might be an effective clinical strategy for multimodality advanced solid cancer therapy. We conclude that a 'combined' examination, in which a pain diary evaluating pain is considered in association with an SF-36 assessment evaluating quality of life is crucial to patient care. Palliat Care Res 2008 ; 3(2) 308-315