New Study Links Osteoporosis Drugs to Cancer

New Study Links Oral Bisphosphonates to Esophageal Cancer

A case-control study in BMJ finds that oral bisphosphonates are associated with increased risk for esophageal cancer, thus contradicting a recent JAMA study finding no such link.

In the current study, British researchers used a national database to identify nearly 16,000 adults diagnosed with esophageal, stomach, or colorectal cancer over a 10-year period, and matched them with some 78,000 controls without cancer. Prescriptions for bisphosphonates were then assessed for the 7.5 years before diagnosis.

Bisphosphonate prescriptions were associated with a 30% increase in risk for esophageal cancer, with the elevated risk largely limited to patients with 10 or more prescriptions. The drugs did not appear to increase risk for stomach or colorectal cancer.

The researchers, noting that the contradictory JAMA study used the same database, say the disparate result may be due, in part, to the longer follow-up and greater number of controls in the current study.