Local radiotherapy is an effective method of palliative treatment for bone metastases, providing significant pain relief in more than 70% of patients and complete pain relief in 40%-60% of patients, with improvement in symptoms as early as 48 h after radiotherapy. A comparison of cases treated with conventional fractionated, short-term fractionated and rapid fractionated radiotherapy showed that overall 76% of patients had pain relief, and the complete pain relief rate was 8l% for conventional fractionated radiotherapy, 65% for short-term fractionated (P=O.03) and 46% for rapid fractionated (P=0.0001). The mechanism of action of radiotherapy is that radiation inhibits or kills tumor cells, prevents the invasion and destruction of bone, increases osteoblast activity, and increases collagen synthesis to form new bone. Radiotherapy often needs to be combined with other treatments such as surgery. It is mostly used alone in patients who (1) cannot tolerate surgery and have an expected survival of less than 6 months; (2) have a low risk of pathological fracture; (3) have spinal lesions without significant spinal instability and neurological symptoms; (4) have pelvic tumors that do not involve the acetabulum and do not have significant functional impairment; and (5) have tumors that are sensitive to radiotherapy. It is important to note that radiotherapy for bone metastases does not achieve long-term control. Results of a review of 12 randomized trials showed that most patients had shorter pain relief than survival time after treatment.