Bone drug zoledronic acid may help prevent spread of early lung cancer

Zoledronic acid, a drug that is currently used to help treat bone metastases in patients with lung cancer could also be useful at an earlier stage of treatment, to prevent the cancer from spreading in the first place, Italian researchers have found. The drug is marketed by Swiss drug major Novartis (NOVN: VX) as Reclast, which generated sales of $579 million last year.

Michela Quirino and colleagues from the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Rome, Italy, have reported important new evidence that zoledronic acid may be able to prevent lung cancer metastases from recruiting the new blood vessels they need to survive. This process of recruiting new blood vessels is called angiogenesis.

"Our investigation represents the first clear clinical evidence of the anti-angiogenic effect of zoledronic acid in patients with metastatic lung cancer," said Dr Quirino, adding: "It also represents the first biological basis in lung cancer for the clinical investigation of zoledronic acid not only for metastatic lung cancer, but also in early disease."