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| |  DG DISPATCH - BREAST CANCER: Bisphosphonates May Reduce Metastases By Robert Carlson Special to DG News SAN ANTONIO, TX -- December 13, 1999 -- Drugs developed to prevent and treat osteoporosis are being used to fight an even deadlier bone disease, that of bone tumors which originate from breast cancer. Cancers which reach advanced stages can spin off colonies of tumor cells called metastases, which set up new tumors in other parts of the body.
Metastases from cancers that originate in the breast tend to settle into the bones. Bone metastases can cause debilitating pain and severe fractures. It is not unusual for a person with advanced cancer to die from these metastatic tumors rather than from the original tumor. Enter the bisphosphonates, a relatively new class of drugs developed to prevent the breakdown of bone cells in osteoporosis. In just the past few years, cancer researchers have found that treatment with bisphosphonates will also prevent the destruction of bone by cancer metastases and even cause those metastatic tumors to shrink. The latest finding is that bisphosphonates may stop bone metastases from developing at all. At the 22nd Annual San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, in San Antonio, TX, Ingo Diel, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine, University of Heidelberg, Germany, summarized the evidence in favor of giving bisphosphonates to women with breast cancer who have a high risk of advancing cancer. He explained that bisphosphonates interrupt the "vicious cycle" of bone metastases, which begins when tumor cells settle into bone and stimulate the release of factors which cause the breakdown of bone tissue. In turn, destruction of bone cells releases factors which stimulate the production of more tumor cells. Dr. Diel described his recent trial of 300 patients who already had tumor cells in their bone marrow. They were assigned either to receive no treatment for bone complications, or to receive oral clodronate, one of the newer bisphosphonates. After two years, patients who received clodronate had significantly fewer metastases in bone, but they also had significantly fewer metastases in other organs as well. The researchers concluded that patients who took clodronate survived longer than those who did not. Other trials have not had the same success with clodronate, Dr. Diel said, so he and colleagues have begun a new trial with one of the latest bisphosphonates, zolendronate, which will be given intravenously.
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