Radiation
Radiation therapy for pain relief works the same way as radiation for cancer treatment: by using radiation to damage cancer cells. This shrinks the tumor or slows its growth, relieving the pain it is causing.
Chemotherapy
Chemotherapy involves the use of medications to stop or slow down the growth of a tumor, and it may be useful in relieving pain caused by certain types of cancer that are more sensitive to chemotherapy. Because chemotherapy can have bad side effects, weighing these effects against the possible benefits must be done on an individual basis. If chemotherapy does not offer a good chance of pain relief, the overall result may be to cause more suffering than it relieves. Generally, chemotherapy for pain relief is only considered if less troublesome treatments have failed to give good relief.
Hormone therapy
Hormone therapy refers to treatments that either directly give hormones or indirectly affect the way the body makes its own hormones. In many situations,these treatments can give very good pain relief without causing many side effects. Breast cancer, prostate cancer and endometrial cancer are likely to respond well to hormone therapy when they are widespread.