Bloomberg News (8/11, Doherty) reported, "A group of medicines widely used to prevent bone loss doesn't increase the risk of cancer of the esophagus or stomach." In fact, the "combined incidence of the two tumor types was the same for osteoporosis patients given the drugs, called bisphosphonates, as for those not treated with the medicines," according to a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine. "Duration of treatment didn't have an impact on the risk of either cancer." About 18 months ago, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reported 23 cases of esophageal cancer in alendronate treated patients from 1995 to 2008, and another 31 cases in patients using a variety of bisphosphonates in Europe and Japan. The researches analyzed data on more than 80,000 UK patients. During an "average follow-up of about 4.5 years, there were 37 cases of stomach cancer and 79 cases of esophageal cancer diagnosed in the bisphosphonate group, compared with 43 cases of stomach cancer and 72 cases of esophageal cancer after 4.4 years in the control group," HealthDay (8/10, Preidt) reported. Thus, the Belfast-based team concluded, "these drugs should not be withheld, on the basis of possible esophageal cancer risk, from patients with a genuine clinical indication for their use." However, as reported elsewhere, there may be other concerns about long-term use of these drugs.
