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Bone Loss – A Side Effect of Conventional Cancer Treatment

Mar 10, 2009 by TacticularCancer.com

The detrimental side effects of conventional cancer treatment are numerous. Many are devastating, too. It is indeed a travesty that so many people have to suffer the adverse effects of such poisons masqueraded as treatment or therapy.

Here, this study describes the potential of certain cancer treatment protocols to cause bone loss. Do read it with the awareness that this study was in fact funded by a big pharmaceutical company.

Conventional Cancer Treatment Linked to Bone Loss

by Reuben Chow

The adverse health effects of conventional cancer treatment are numerous, and some well-known ones include hair loss, loss of appetite, nausea, constipation and even organ failure. A recent study carried out in Canada has revealed that treatments for breast cancer and prostate cancer can cause bone loss, too.

Details and Findings of Study

Published online in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, the study was led by Dr Fred Saad, who is the director of urologic oncology at the Universite de Montreal’s Faculty of Medicine and the Centre Hospitalier de l’Universite de Montreal (CHUM), and its team included members from McMaster University, the Universite Laval, the University of British Columbia, as well as the University of Toronto.

All in all, the research team looked at and analyzed data from a staggering number of previous studies on breast cancer and prostate cancer – more than 3,500 of them. And they found that breast cancer patients who were undergoing treatment with aromatase inhibitors had a higher chance of developing bone loss and fractures, as compared to those who were not undergoing such a protocol.

At the same time, the study team found that prostate cancer sufferers who were undergoing androgen deprivation therapy experienced heightened risk of bone disorders. Such increased risk was consistently detected across the studies analyzed, with the elevation in risk ranging from 5% to 45%.

“Awareness of the incidence of cancer-associated bone loss raises issues for clinicians who should identify those patients who are most at risk for fractures and prescribe treatment strategies. This information is not only a concern for the specialists, but also for the general practitioners who frequently encounter these patients,” said Dr Saad.

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