PARIS, FRANCE — July 10, 2002 —
A product developed to prevent osteoporosis has found use in treating men with debilitating bone tumours associated with prostate cancer. In a large, randomised phase III trial, the bisphosphonate zolendronate was found to reduce the incidence of skeletal-related events by approximately 25 percent.
The men taking zolendronate (also called Zometa and zolendronic acid and Zomera in Israel) in this trial had a 33 percent rate of skeletal-related events (SREs) compared with a 44 percent rate for men taking placebo, said principal investigator Fred Saad, MD, medical oncologist, Montreal Cancer Institute, University of Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
He presented the results here this week at the 3rd International Consultation on Prostate Cancer. Bone tumours leading to SREs are the most painful and often fatal complication of prostate cancer.
SREs include pathological fractures, spinal cord compression, radiation procedures or surgery necessary to relieve bone pain or obstruction, hypercalcaemia of malignancy, or modification of chemotherapy regimen to reduce pain. The rate of subsequent SREs was reduced by 36 percent in the zolendronate arm, a substantial decrease considering that men who develop a first clinically detectable bone tumour typically develop further tumours quite rapidly.
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