Osteoporosis Treatment and Esophagus Cancer

Drugs to treat osteoporosis may increase esophageal cancer risk.
Bloomberg News (9/3, von Schaper) reports, "A group of drugs used to prevent bone loss in osteoporosis patients may increase the risk of contracting cancer of the esophagus." In fact, "patients who took the medicines, known as bisphosphonates, for five years or filled at least 10 prescriptions were twice as likely to be diagnosed with the cancer as those who didn't."
The "findings are in contrast to another recent study that used the same database of 80,000 patients and concluded that there was no link between the drugs and esophageal cancer," the AP (9/3, Cheng) reports. "That study was published last month in the Journal of the American Medical Association." But, the authors of the current BMJ paper "say they tracked patients for nearly twice as long -- nearly eight years."
Specifically, Oxford researchers "used the UK General Practice Research Database to collect data on almost 3,000 men and women with esophageal cancer, more than 2,000 with stomach cancer and over 10,000 with colorectal cancer diagnosed between 1995 and 2005," HealthDay (9/2, Reinberg) reported. "They compared these patients with age- and sex-matched people without these conditions."
Investigators eventually discovered that "individuals diagnosed with esophageal cancer of were 1.93 times as likely (95% CI 1.37 to 2.70) to have received at least 10 prescriptions for oral bisphosphonates, compared with controls not having cancer," MedPage Today (9/2, Gever) reported. The "likelihood of receiving at least one bisphosphonate prescription among esophageal cancer patients was 1.30 (95% CI 1.02 to 1.66) relative to controls, the researchers found." Meanwhile, an "accompanying editorial by an FDA epidemiologist, Diane Wysowski, PhD, noted that links between bisphosphonates and esophageal cancer have been proposed for more than 15 years," and the agency "has collected a total of 68 case reports of esophageal cancer in patients taking bisphosphonates, half in the US and the rest in Europe and Japan, but has not ordered label warnings."
Still, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) recently "said there was 'no need' for patients to stop taking the medication on the basis of the study alone," the UK's Telegraph (9/3, Adams) reports. "Dr. Des Spence, a Glasgow GP who has also written on the subject in the BMJ, said doctors should focus less on the drugs and more on how to avoid falls, as well as on improving diet and increasing targeted exercise."