Bone Drug Suppresses Wandering Tumor Cells In Breast Cancer Patients And May Reduce Metastatic Disease
Posted Jun 03 2010 5:23am
Breast cancer cells taken from a patient’s bone marrow. The cancer cells are stained to make them easy to spot among the normal cells of the bone marrow.
The bone-strengthening drug zoledronic acid (Zometa) can help fight metastatic breast cancer when given before surgery, suggests research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
When the drug was given along with chemotherapy for three months before breast cancer surgery, it reduced the number of women who had tumor cells in their bone marrow at the time of surgery.
The study was published in the May issue of The Lancet Oncology.
Breast cancer cells taken from a patient’s bone marrow. The cancer cells are stained to make them easy to spot among the normal cells of the bone marrow.
The bone-strengthening drug zoledronic acid (Zometa) can help fight metastatic breast cancer when given before surgery, suggests research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
When the drug was given along with chemotherapy for three months before breast cancer surgery, it reduced the number of women who had tumor cells in their bone marrow at the time of surgery.
The study was published in the May issue of The Lancet Oncology.