Bisphosphonates may cause poorer survival rate in women with early stage breast cancer: Study
February 29, 2016
"The reason for our study is we are looking for improved outcomes in women with early stage breast cancer," she said. "We are evaluating the results from this study. But right now, I think we're justified in saying to these nonmetastatic breast cancer patients, let's wait until we get more data before we prescribe bisphosphonates."
There are randomized trials occurring right now to study bisphosphonate use in an adjuvant setting. Dr. Nahleh said the next step is to conduct more clinical and pre-clinical trials on bisphosphonates on nonmetastatic breast cancer patients and understanding the effects of these drugs on the different types of breast cancer.
Dr. Nahleh said that extensive research was undertaken by Ashish Bhargava, M.D., a resident of Internal Medicine at Wayne State University School of Medicine and Kavita Nirmal, M.D., who at the time of the study was serving a fellowship in the Hematology/Oncology Department at Wayne State University School of Medicine. Judith Abrams, Ph.D., director of the Biostatistics Core at Karmanos and professor of Internal Medicine at Wayne State University Medical Center, and John Graff, Ph.D., MS, former epidemiologist at the Karmanos Cancer Institute, also assisted in the study.
"I hope this study will open venues for more confirmatory research to be conducted," she said. "That's the main question that needs to be answered ??� does nitrogen-containing bisphosphonates cause a lower survival rate in some women with nonmetastatic breast cancer and which group of patients can be affected?"
SOURCE Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute