MONDAY, Dec. 22, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- Bisphosphonates may lower the risk of endometrial cancer, new research suggests. The study appears online Dec. 22 in Cancer.
Researchers examined the medical records of women who took bisphosphonates that contain nitrogen, which is thought to boost antitumor effects. The authors studied 29,254 women overall. When assessing risk, they accounted for factors such as age, race, and smoking status.
The researchers found that women taking the drugs had about half the risk of endometrial cancer compared to women who don't take the drugs. The effect was similar after adjusting for all the covariates in Cox proportional hazards analysis.
"Other studies have shown that bisphosphonates may reduce the risk of certain cancers, but we are the first to show that the risk for endometrial cancer may also be reduced," Sharon Hensley Alford, Ph.D., a public health researcher from the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, said in a journal news release. "This study suggests that women who need bone-strengthening medications and who have increased risk for endometrial cancer may want to choose the nitrogen form of bisphosphonates because this form may reduce the risk of endometrial cancer."
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