Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2005 Aug;93 Suppl 1(Suppl 1):S16-22.
doi: 10.1038/sj.bjc.6602691.

Bone loss and the aromatase inhibitors

J Lester  1 , R Coleman
Affiliations
Review

Bone loss and the aromatase inhibitors

J Lester et al. Br J Cancer. 2005 Aug.

Abstract

The increasing use of systemic adjuvant therapies has considerably improved the prognosis from early breast cancer. However, some of these therapies affect bone metabolism, resulting in osteoporosis. Aromatase inhibitors lower circulating oestrogen levels to almost unrecordable levels in postmenopausal women, predisposing them to bone loss with an increase in fracture risk. Ongoing clinical trials are favouring the use of the aromatase inhibitors over tamoxifen and this may advocate greater use of these drugs in the future. Strategies for the identification and management of treatment-induced bone loss are currently being defined.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Changes in BMD of (A) the hip and (B) the spine in premenopausal women on tamoxifen or placebo. Reproduced with permission from Powles et al (1996).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Adachi JD, Ioannidis G, Olszynski WP, Brown JP, Hanley DA, Sebaldt RJ, Petrie A, Tenenhouse A, Stephenson GF, Papaioannou A, Guyatt GH, Goldsmith CH (2002) The impact of incident vertebral and non-vertebral fractures on health related quality of life in postmenopausal women. BMC Musculoskelet Disord 3(1): 11. - PMC - PubMed
    1. ATAC Trialists' Group (2002) Anastrozole alone or in combination with tamoxifen versus tamoxifen alone for adjuvant treatment of postmenopausal women with early breast cancer: first results of the ATAC randomised trial. Lancet 359: 2131–2139 - PubMed
    1. Baum M, Buzdar A, Cuzick J, Forbes J, Houghton J, Howell A, Sahmoud T, The ATAC (Arimidex, Tamoxifen Alone or in Combination) Trialists' Group (2003) Anastrozole alone or in combination with tamoxifen versus tamoxifen alone for adjuvant treatment of postmenopausal women with early-stage breast cancer: results of the ATAC (Arimidex, Tamoxifen Alone or in Combination) trial efficacy and safety update analyses. Cancer 98(9): 1802–1810 - PubMed
    1. Black DM, Cummings SR, Karpf DB, Cauley JA, Thompson DE, Nevitt MC, Bauer DC, Genant HK, Haskell WL, Marcus R, Ott SM, Torner JC, Quandt SA, Reiss TF, Ensrud KE (1996) Randomised trial of effect of alendronate on risk of fracture in women with existing vertebral fractures. Lancet 348: 1535–1541 - PubMed
    1. Black DM, Thompson DE, Bauer DC, Ensrud K, Musliner T, Hochberg MC, Nevitt MC, Suryawanshi S, Cummings SR, Fracture Intervention Trial (2000) Fracture risk reduction with alendronate in women with osteoporosis: the fracture intervention trial. J Clin Endocrinol Metab 85(11): 4118–4124 - PubMed

MeSH terms

Substances