my personal edition > breast cancer > news


  E-Mail this DGDispatch to a colleague

DGDispatch

Ibandronate (Bondronat) Excellent Treatment Option for Metastatic Bone Pain: Presented at ESMO

By Jill Stein

ISTANBUL, TURKEY -- October 3, 2006 -- The bisphosphonate ibandronate (Bondronat) decreases pain in patients with metastatic bone disease irrespective of prior bisphosphonate treatment, researchers reported October 1^st at the 31^st European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Scientific Conference.

Arnd Nusch, MD, an oncologist in private practice, Velbert, Germany, presented the results of an interim analysis of postmarketing surveillance data in 551 patients with breast cancer who had received a 24-week course of standard intravenous ibandronate 6 mg every 4 weeks or daily oral ibandronate 50 mg.

"Patients with advanced breast cancer are likely to develop metastatic bone disease," Dr. Nusch said. "Bone lesions cause fractures, spinal-cord compression, hypercalcemia, and bone pain. A major goal in treating metastatic bone disease is to reduce pain and subsequently restore a higher quality of life for these patients."

Patients in the study were divided into 3 groups based on prior treatment. Overall, 326 patients were bisphosphonate-naive, 65 had undergone prior ibandronate treatment, and 160 had prior treatment with other bisphosphonates.

Bone pain was assessed on an 11-point visual analog scale (VAS), where a score of 0 referred to no pain and 10 indicated maximal pain.

Patients represented the spectrum of disease status treated in clinical practice, Dr. Nusch said, as was expected. Sixty three percent had progressive disease, 29% had stable disease, and 7% had disease remission.

At baseline, patients who had received ibandronate pretreatment had lower metastatic bone-pain scores (2.1 +/- 2.2) than the overall population (3.4 +/- 2.5).

Thirty percent of patients pretreated with ibandronate were pain-free at baseline versus 12% of bisphosphonate-naive patients and 15% of patients treated with other bisphosphonates. Patients who were pain-free at baseline were excluded from the metastatic bone-pain analysis.

There was no increase in analgesic use for all patients during ibandronate treatment.

Fewer patients in the groups that were pretreated with ibandronate required additional analgesia (28% versus 50%).

At the end of the 24-week study ibandronate treatment period, 73% of patients experienced overall improvements in pain scores.

Mean reduction in the metastatic bone-pain score from baseline to the last measure was -1.3.

Reductions in metastatic bone-pain scores were achieved with ibandronate in bisphosphonate-naive patients and in patients previously treated with other bisphosphonates. Patients who had received prior ibandronate therapy had sustained bone-pain relief throughout the study period.

"Our results suggest that ibandronate provides improved pain relief compared with other bisphosphonates, as suggested by the baseline pain scores in patients with previous bisphosphonate therapy," Dr. Nusch said. He added that baseline ibandronate patients had improved metastatic bone-pain relief over patients treated with other bisphosphonates.

Furthermore, the data indicate that ibandronate treatment reduced the severity of bone pain in patients who had received prior therapy with another bisphosphonate or were bisphosphonate-naive.

"Thus, postmarketing analysis provides additional evidence of the ability of ibandronate to provide relief from [metastatic bone pain] in the clinical setting," he said.

This study was sponsored by F. Hoffman-LaRoche Ltd.


[Presentation title: Pain Reduction With Ibandronate is Achieved Regardless of Prior Bisphosphonate Treatment: Post-Marketing Surveillance Data. Abstract 177P]

E-Mail this DGDispatch to a colleague

To print, use this version