Percutaneous vertebroplasty in the management of a patient with malignant pain and associated osteolytic compression fractures.

Percutaneous vertebroplasty is a minimally invasive procedure that is effective in the treatment of pain resulting from pathologic compression fractures, osteolytic bone metastases from solid tumors, myeloma, vertebral hemangioma, and osteoporotic compression fractures. A discussion of a patient with severe, aggressive metastatic breast cancer to the spine with compression and osteolysis of multiple lumbar vertebral bodies is presented. Despite treatment with opiates, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and the implantation of a morphine pump, her pain was not adequately treated until she underwent multilevel vertebroplasty. The clinical and technical application of vertebroplasty in the context of the management of vertebral pain of malignant origin is presented as an integral part of multidisciplinary pain management.