Osteoporosis drug helpful to prostate cancer patients who also have bone cancer
Post-menopausal women, who are among the patients most at risk for developing the bone-thinning disease osteoporosis, can buy Evista to help prevent fractures.
Post-menopausal women, who are among the patients most at risk for developing the bone-thinning disease osteoporosis, can buy Evista to help prevent fractures. Other drugs that may help include a class of medicine known as bisphosphonates, which new research indicates may be helpful to men with painful bone metastases related to prostate cancer.
The standard treatment for pain relief from bone metastases is single dose radiotherapy. Scientists in Sweden discovered that giving men bisphosphonate ibandronate (IB) could be just as effective, as reported at the 2011 European Multidisciplinary Cancer Congress. In their study, 470 subjects who had both prostate cancer and bone metastases were assigned to receive either IB or radiotherapy. The patients' pain was assessed at the start of the study, as well as four, eight, 12, 26 and 52 weeks after treatment. Those whose pain did not respond to therapy at the four-week interval switched their treatment group.
Results showed that IB is just as effective in managing pain from bone metastases as radiotherapy. However, patients who received a combination of both therapies tended to live longer than those who only received one treatment, and the researchers would like to investigate why. They would also like to conduct future studies to find biomarkers for bone resorption to understand which patients will be responsive to what therapy.
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