Cancer drug may protect the ol’ bones

Associated Press

A single intravenous dose of medicine a year rather than a pill a day may be enough to prevent osteoporosis, the bone-thinning condition that leads to fractures and hunched backs, especially in women past menopause.

The startling finding came out of a study of a drug called zoledronic acid, which is approved for use in cancer patients to stop calcium from leaching from the bones.

It will be about five years before doctors know whether the drug really does prevent fractures, because the study in today’s New England Journal of Medicine was only a one-year look at the medicine’s effect on bone itself. The manufacturer, which paid for the research, has already begun the much larger and longer studies.

But doctors who treat osteoporosis — a disease that weakens the bones of more than 10 million Americans and threatens millions more — are excited by the preliminary results.

Dr. Felicia Cosman, clinical director of the National Osteoporosis Foundation, said the thought of a once-a-year treatment is mind-boggling.

"It’s potentially a huge change in treatment — and, I think, prevention — of osteoporosis," said Dr. Ian Reid of the University of Auckland, New Zealand, who led the study. "I think it almost comes into the category of a flu shot, rather than taking pills every day and having side effects."

Bone density for patients in the study was 4.3 percent to 5.1 percent higher in the spine and 3.1 percent to 3.5 percent higher in the hip than it was for patients on a placebo.

The drug, sold by Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. as Zometa, is in a class called bisphosphonates. Two other drugs in this class are used as one-a-day pills to treat osteoporosis; one also is available as a once-a-week pill.

Copyright ©2002 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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