Table 5.

Drug response in patients (N = 167) with painful bone metastases after receiving palliative radiation therapy (PRT)

	The number (%) of patients with drug score at week after PRT
Drugs consumption after PRT	2	4	6	8
Increased	12 (9.1)	8 (7.8)	6 (7.6)	4 (5.9)
Stable	83 (62.9)	56 (54.4)	36 (45.6)	33 (48.5)
Partially reduced‡	14 (10.6)	14 (13.6)	17 (21.5)	13 (19.1)
Discontinued	23 (17.4)	25 (24.3)	20 (25.3)	18 (26.5)
valid	132	103	79	68
missing	35	64	88	99

*Drug score = drug severity score × drug frequency score. Drug severity: none given = 0, analgesic = 1, mild narcotic = 2, strong narcotic = 3. Drug frequency: none given = 0, less than once per day = 1, once per day = 2, twice or more per day = 3. Drug score was defined as discontinued = drug score of 0, partially reduced = decrease drug score ≥ one point, stable = same drug score before and after treatment, increased = increase drug score ≥ one point. Drug score estimates drug consumption in relation to pre-treatment status and, therefore, pre-treatment data were not recorded.

†Significant differences in drug score were found between week 2 and week 4 (P = 0.013), week 6 (P = 0.011), and week 8 (P = 0.012). Non-significant differences were found between week 4 and week 6, between week 4 and week 8, between week 6 and week-

‡Partially reduced analgesic consumption means that strong narcotic was replaced by a mild narcotic or an analgesic, or that mild narcotic was replaced by analgesic, and/or that the frequency of the drug consumption was changed from twice or more per day to once or less per day.