Zoledronic acid is effective in preventing and delaying skeletal events in patients with bone metastases secondary to genitourinary cancers.

摘要

Sir,We read this mini-review by Saad and Lipton with interest. Whilst the zoledronic acid study 039 is the largest randomized study to date for metastatic hormone-refractory prostate cancer, there are still no results from studies assessing the role of zoledronic acid in patients with metastatic bone disease who are responsive to hormone manipulation. Many of the review articles fail to emphasise that this trial actually assessed patients with metastatic hormone-refractory prostate cancer and not hormone-naive metastatic prostate cancer . Zoledronic acid has already proved beneficial for osteolytic metastases in breast cancer and multiple myeloma, by reducing the skeletal-related events, improving quality of life and reducing pain. Although we could extrapolate this to prostate cancer we currently have no results from any trials with zoledronic acid in patients with prostate cancer and metastasis who are hormone-naive.