[Bisphosphonates and breast cancer]

In recent years, treatment outcome of early-stage breast cancer has significantly improved, with an increasing number of patients healing up permanently. Many of the drug therapies for breast cancer, however, have an unfavorable effect on the bone, increasing the risk of osteoporosis and bone fractures. In disseminated breast cancer the most common sites of metastasis are the bones. Bisphosphonates have been successfully applied to the treatment of bone-metastasized breast cancer already for 25 years. They decrease the risk of detrimental bone events such as malign hypercalcemia, pathologic fractures and skeletal pains, and slow down the growth of skeletal metastases.