Abstract
About 40% of patients treated with operable primary breast cancer will at some stage relapse and nearly half of these will have evidence of bone metastases at this time. Development of bone metastases depends in part on the release of osteolytic factors by tumour cells that are able to stimulate the host osteoclast to cause bone destruction. This facilitates the development of bone metastases and may produce the complications of bone pain, fracture and hypercalcaemia [1–3]. The development of bone metastases being dependent, particularly in the early phases, on recruitment of osteoclasts has raised the interest in use of agents which would inhibit osteoclastic bone resorption such as the bisphosphonates [4]. Oral clodronate has been shown to be an effective bisphosphonate for treatment of hypercalcaemia and malignancy [5], and there are indications that its long-term use may inhibit the effect of osteolysis caused by bone metastases [6]. Clodronate has the added attraction over other bisphosphonates of being effective by oral administration. The usual oral dose for efficacy is 1600 mg/day.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Powles TJ, Clarke M, Easty DM, Easty GC, Neville AM (1973) Inhibition by aspirin and indomethacin of osteolytic tumour deposits and hypercaleaemia in rats with Walker tumour and its possible application to human breast cancer. Br J Cancer 28: 316–321
Paterson AHG (1987) Bone metastases in breast cancer, prostate cancer and myeloma. Bone 8: [Suppl. 1] S17-S 22
Mundy GR (1987) Bone resorption and turnover in health and disease. Bone 8: [Suppl. 1] S 9–S16
Fleisch H (1989) Bisphosphonates: mechanism of action and clinical application. In: Herfarth C, Senn HJ (eds) Recent results of cancer research vol 116. Springer, Berlin Heidelberg New York, pp 1–28
Siris ES, Hyman GA, Canfield RE (1983) Effects of dichlorometylene diphosphonate in women with breast carcinoma metastatic to the skeleton Am J Med 74: 401–406
Elomaa I, Blomqvist C, Porkka L et al. (1988) Clodronate for osteolytic metastases due breast cancer. Biomed Pharmacother 42: 111–116
Paterson AHG, Powles TJ, Kanis JA, McCloskey E, Hanson J, Ashley S (1993) Double-blind controlled trial of oral clodronate in patients with bone metastases from breast cancer. J Clin Oncol 11: 1–7
McCloskey GV, Spector T, Eyres KS. Definition of vertebral deformity — a new algorithm for use in population studies and clinical trials. Osteoporosis Int (submitted)
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1994 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Powles, T.J., Paterson, A.H.G., Kanis, J.A. (1994). Clodronate Decreases Skeletal Morbidity in Patients with Bone Metastases from Breast Cancer: A Double-Blind Randomised Controlled Trial. In: Diel, I.J., Kaufmann, M., Bastert, G. (eds) Metastatic Bone Disease. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-78596-2_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-78596-2_13
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-57356-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-78596-2
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive