Oral ibandronate in metastatic bone breast cancer: the Florence University experience and a review of the literature.

Ibandronate is an amino-bisphosphonate approved in metastatic breast cancer to reduce skeletal complications and to alleviate bone pain. we report our experience about the safety of oral ibandronate and review the literature.We treated 44 patients and administered 524 cycles of oral ibandronate (a single cycle was defined as a 50 mg capsule once daily for 28 days) with a median of 12 cycles (range 6-24). At a median follow-up of 18.5 months (range 6-28) the mean pain score decreased from 1.59 (SD+/-0.97) at baseline to 0.41 (SD+/-0.72) after 48 weeks of treatment. The mean analgesic score was 1.89 (SD+/-1.37) at baseline and 1.46 (SD+/-1.62) after 48 weeks of treatment. Ibandronate was generally well-tolerated; we had no Grade 3-4 adverse events. No patients had deterioration of renal function. No patients developed bisphosphonate-associated osteonecrosis of the jaw. Our experience confirmed that ibandronate may be a useful and safe co-analgesic to conventional treatments for bone pain in selected metastatic breast cancer patients.