The presence of spinal metastases means that cancer cells from a cancer elsewhere in the body have spread through the blood stream and some of these have lodged in the bones of the spine to form secondary cancers (also called metastases). Sometimes tests show just a single metastases, or secondary cancer, but more often there will be a number of growths apparent. These may be clustered in one area or scattered throughout the length of the spine.

Not all spinal metastases give rise to symptoms and many will never cause any problems. When symptoms do occur the most frequent one is pain. The pain is usually at the site of the metastasis but sometimes the growth will irritate one of the nerves from the spine which may cause the pain to be felt elsewhere (this is called a referred pain).

Radiotherapy is an effective way of relieving pain from spinal metastases. Four out of five people get a great improvement in their pain, often with complete relief, after treatment. Often just a single radiotherapy treatment, as an out-patient, is all that is necessary but sometimes a short course of between five to ten treatments may be required.

The dose of radiotherapy to ease bone pain is quite low and this means that if the pain comes back at a later date it is often possible to repeat the treatment.

The radiotherapy does not have an immediate effect, it usually takes about a week to ten days before any improvement is noticeable and it can be as long as six to eight weeks before the full benefit is reached. So it is important to have pain killers to help control the discomfort whilst waiting for the radiotherapy to work.

Radiotherapy is usually only given when spinal metastases are causing symptoms.

Radiotherapy is a local treatment. This means that only the area that has been irradiated will be affected by the treatment. For this reason when spinal metastases are discovered, radiotherapy will often be given to any troublesome areas but chemotherapy or hormonal treatment (depending on the type of cancer) may also be started to try and achieve control of the secondary tumours elsewhere.