How can we improve the treatment of bone metastases further?

Bone is one of the most frequent organs to be affected by metastatic cancer and causes more morbidity than any other metastatic site. Bisphosphonate treatment provides an organ-specific treatment which is relevant to most if not all tumour types involving bone. Bisphosphonates, particularly the potent agent pamidronate (Aredia), will relieve metastatic bone pain with a consequent improvement in quality of life in approximately 50% of patients. Long-term bisphosphonate treatment clearly reduces skeletal morbidity rates in multiple myeloma and breast cancer.