A drug designed to treat bone thinning has been found to prevent secondary tumours in women who have had breast cancer and to increase their survival rates.
The study of more than 1,000 women who had received surgery for primary breast cancer found that giving them the drug, bisphosphonate clodronate, for two years reduced the occurrence of bone cancer by 56 per cent.
The number of deaths from the original breast cancers was reduced by 23 per cent. The researchers also detected a trend towards a reduction in cancers of major organs although these findings were not statistically significant.
However, they could be important for other cancers that can lead to cancer in bones, including prostate cancer.
Prof Trevor Powles, head of the breast unit at the Royal Marsden Hospital, London, led the study. He said yesterday: "There were little or few side effects from the treatment.
"So much is now happening in breast cancer that is positive and I am very glad to be involved. Several other studies have already started following our findings."
He said that while the researchers had hoped to see a reduction in the occurrence of cancer of the bones, to which breast cancer commonly spreads, the reduction in the death rate was unexpected.
"The findings of this study are encouraging for breast cancer patients and may pave the way to more routine use of clodrinate or other bisphophonates in the prevention of bone metastases," he said.
Clodrinate, tradename, Bonefos, was first licensed in 1985 to treat bone thinning.
The women in the study, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology this month, had all had surgery for primary breast cancer which had shown no sign of spreading to their bones. They were also being treated with chemotherapy and tamoxifen.
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