Zometa for prevention?

Hi,

I've seen a number of posts in other other forums about taking zometa for prevention.

Is anyone doing that for triple negative BC? What's your thought on this? Do you think it's worth pursuing to get Zometa to prevent recurrence?

I'm wondering if we should try to pursue this with the oncologist to pursue Zometa for early stage triple negative.

Any one else taking Zometa for prevention?

My understanding is that the data on this are encouraging, but not conclusive enough for most oncologists to prescribe it or (definitely) for insurance companies to pay for it.  I think at the high recommended dosage it is around $1000/month or something around that.  There are clinical trials, however, looking at bisphosphonates for all breast cancers.  In some of those studies, Zometa is the only drug, in others, there are three being looked at - Zometa, ibandronate, and clodronate.  I'm in the latter trial, and was randomly assigned to clodronate, an older generation bisphosphonate.  The trial provides whichever bisphosphonate you are assigned to for free for three years.  It is put out by SWOG (S0307, I think).  One thing to keep in mind is that these drugs are powerful and not without risk.  Jaw necrososis is a very real possibility, especially for the IV bisphosphonates like Zometa.  And it can be hard on kidneys/liver.  So....you  might want to check out the clinical trials.   You'll see that the data is encouraging but pretty mixed.  Another thing about the clinical trials - you have to sign up within a certain window of standard treatment.  If you do neoadjuvant, the SWOG study required starting within 12 weeks of finishing surgery, which for me coincided with the day after I finished radiation.

Good luck,
Denise


Edited by dmwolf - Feb 14 2009 at 12:51pm