A bone-saving drug could help breast cancer patients too – with less side effects

In 10 seconds? Animal experiments have shown that a previously approved osteoporosis drug could be used to treat a subset of breast cancer, potentially with fewer side-effects than the current treatments.

What drug is that? It is a compound called lasofoxifene, which was developed for postmenopausal women to prevent the condition that makes bones brittle and break easily. Some non-pharmacological approaches (such as a diet rich in calcium and vitamin D and possibly some forms of exercise) might help prevent osteoporosis, but because some risk factors are non-modifiable (eg, older age and being female), there is still a need for pharmaceutical treatments for this disease, and that is why lasofoxifene was developed.