The addition of zoledronic acid(Drug information on zoledronic acid) (Zometa) increases overall survival in lung cancer patients with bone metastases, according to researchers at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and G. Papanikolaou Hospital in Greece.
For this study, they enrolled 144 stage IV lung cancer patients with evidence of metastases on bone scans.
Of the 144, a total of 87 reported bone pain and were treated with zoledronic acid (4 mg by IV) every 21 days. The remaining patients did not receive treatment with the bisphosphonate.
All patients underwent chemotherapy with docetaxel(Drug information on docetaxel) (Taxotere; 100 mg/m2) and carboplatin(Drug information on carboplatin) (AUC = 6). Those who received zoledronic acid had a statistically significant longer survival (P < .01) when compared with those who did not.
The longer the period of receiving zoledronic acid, the better effect on survival and time-to-progression, wrote Kostantinos Zarogoulidis, MD, and colleagues in the International Journal of Cancer (125:1705-1709, 2009).
