Breast cancer patients should be offered ‘osteoporosis drug’, charity urges

According to research by Breast Cancer Now, thousands of post-menopausal women with breast cancer are missing out on a cheap drug that could prevent their disease from spreading.

It claimed that one in 10 deaths from breast cancer could be avoided if all eligible women received the treatment, which has been proven to cut the risk of cancer spreading to the bone.

Bisphosphonates were originally licensed to treat bone fractures in adults with advanced breast cancer, however, a study published in The Lancet found that the drugs could also help post-menopausal women receiving treatment for early breast cancer.

The study showed the drug reduced the risk of breast cancer spreading to the bone by 28 per cent and the risk of dying from breast cancer by 18 per cent, after 10 years.

The drug is estimated to cost 43p on average per day per patient and can be taken for around three years.

However, the charity has warned that a significant number of women are missing out on taking the inexpensive drugs because of a lack of national guidance on who should fund them.

It is currently not clear whether the hospital trust, the local clinical commissioning group (CCG) or central funding from NHS England should be paying for them.

Baroness Morgan, chief executive at Breast Cancer Now, commented: "These are cheap and widely available drugs, and the overwhelming evidence of their ability to save lives should have changed practice by now

"But they are still sitting on the shelf, blocked by bureaucratic inertia."

Professor Rob Coleman, professor of medical oncology at the University of Sheffield, said: "It should be an absolute priority for every clinician and commissioner involved in the provision of breast cancer services to ensure this simple and safe treatment is made available, as a matter of urgency."

NHS England maintained that decisions on the funding of bisphosphonates were currently made locally but it was awaiting new guidelines from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), expected to be published in July 2018.