bisphosphonates appear to reduce the risk of invasive breast cancer by around 30 percent

CypressCynthia

Anyone else seen the news on this today (see link)? I am trying to get my younger sister on one of the bisphosphonates as she had a local recurrence but has not had bone mets like me.

Does anyone know if it matters which one they pick for prevention? She wants to try boniva but we're not sure if one is better than another.

I am on zometa for treatment, but this would be for prevention.

http://www.healthfinder.gov/news/newsstory.aspx?docID=640429

greyhoundluvr

Cynthia -
It looks like this particular study addresses the reduced risk of cancer in women who haven't had it before but my understanding from my oncologist is that they are finding the same thing related to reducing the rsik of recurrence in women who have had breast cancer. There are some earlier posts about this last week. I am in a clinical trial using Zometa and I know that Boniva is also invclved in the trial (plus one of the oral drugs). The findings of reduced recurrence and reduced metastasis had already been noted in a previous trial where they were looking at use for bone metastasis and now they are trying to figure out why and whether one drug is better than the other. I have stage 2a IDC and while I am not thrilled about getting Zometa injections for the next 2 1/2 years (to complete the 3 year clinical trial) my oncologist is such a believer that it seems well worthwhile if it will help reduce the risk of recurrence. I haven't heard at this point that they have defined one a sbeing better than the other for prevention but I have heard that the side effect levels (including the osteonecrosis of the jaw) is about the same for all of the different biphosphonates.