Osteoporosis drugs linked to increased risk of esophageal cancer
Posted on 03. Sep, 2010 by Latha B. Reddy in Health
Taking oral bisphosphonates or the osteoporosis drugs for long term, especially by post-menopausal women, have shown increased risk of developing esophageal cancer, studies suggest.
Team of researchers from University of Oxford as well as Medicine and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency collected data from about 6 million patients. There were about 2954 women with esophageal cancer, 2,018 women with gastric cancer and about 10,641 people had bowel cancer. All the women were aged 40 and above and the researchers looked at use of bisphosphates by them as well as cancers of the esophagus, stomach and the colon. They have also taken factors such as smoking alcohol and BMI.
Their study reveals that there is 30% increased risk of esophageal cancer in those women with one or more prescriptions of the oral bisphosphonates as compared to those who never took the medication.
And, the risk just doubled in those who had had 10 or more prescriptions of the bisphosphonates as compared to those who had somewhere between 1 and 9 prescriptions.
The risk was more than double in the long term users (taking for at least three years or on average five years) as compared to those who had never had a single prescription for the osteoporosis drugs.
However, the researchers could not arrive at significant link between use of osteoporosis drugs and stomach or bowel cancers.
