Osteoporosis drug helps prevent death from breast cancer

British scientists have just published a study that can be considered good news for women with breast cancer, that is, a cheap and widely used drug to prevent osteoporosis can prevent 1,000 deaths from breast cancer each year.

A female patient gets a breast cancer check-up in the UK. (Source: Reuters)

Bisphosphonates, commonly recommended to help strengthen bones, have prevented thousands of deaths from breast cancer in postmenopausal women over the past decade by stopping tumours from spreading to the bones, scientists say.

In the study, a team from the Sheffield Cancer Research Centre pooled medical data from nearly 19,000 women who took part in 26 separate trials of bisphosphonates.

The results showed that osteoporosis drugs benefited women with breast cancer regardless of the type of osteoporosis drug they were taking, the size of their tumors, and whether their tumors were hormone-sensitive (in fact, 80% of breast tumors are hormone-sensitive).

Professor Robert Coleman - leading the research team - said the combined use of anti-osteoporosis drugs Bisphosphonates in the treatment of breast cancer helps reduce the risk of death in patients by 18% within the first 10 years after detecting the disease.

This result was beyond the scientists' expectations. Most importantly, Bisphosphonates are very cheap, costing only 5p per day per patient.

Duchess Delyth Morgan, CEO of breast cancer charity Breast Cancer Now, said the scientists' new findings were one of the most significant advances in breast cancer treatment since the introduction of the anti-cancer drug Herceptin 10 years ago.

Making drugs cost just a few pence would save the NHS millions of pounds, according to Duchess Delyth Morgan.

Doctors say bisphosphonates are currently recommended for all postmenopausal women with breast cancer. They are not very effective in younger women who have not yet entered menopause.

According to Professor Coleman, NHS England is expected to publish new medical guidance for the osteoporosis drug Bisphosphonates this year./.

According to VIETNAM+