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Your Health This WeekPromising new treatments for cancer and osteoporosis.

By Sydney SpieselPosted Tuesday, May 22, 2007, at 12:28 PM ET

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Photograph of Bexxar by University Of Michigan via Getty Images.

Standard treatment: The treatment for osteoporosis has become standardized to a certain extent: oral medications in the bisphosphonate class, often taken along with calcium and vitamin D. Bone is constantly being remodeled over our lifetimes, to repair injuries and to accommodate growth and physical stress. For the remodeling to occur, cells called osteoclasts delicately remove the mineral part of bone, a process called resorption. Other cells, osteoblasts, work nearby to build up bone, but sometimes not as quickly as the osteoclasts take it down. When that happens, often as people age, bones gradually become depleted of calcium. Bisphosphonates work by inhibiting the activity of the osteoclasts. Despite bisphosphonate treatment, however, osteoporosis and the fractures it promotes continue to be a serious problem.

New findings: A recent research report by Dennis Black of the University of California, San Francisco describes a promising alternative treatment with another drug, Aclasta. It, too, interferes with osteoclast function, and needs be given only once a year by a 15-minute intravenous injection. Black's team reports on an experiment in which almost 4,000 women received the treatment (and were compared with a matched group of about the same size). The results were impressive. Compared with women in the placebo group, the treated women, followed for three years, showed a dramatic decrease in fractures of the spine, the hips, and other bones. In addition, treatment with Aclasta significantly increased bone density, a marker for calcium content and often a sign of increased bone strength.

Caveat: There was little difference in troublesome side effects between the two groups of women. The exception was this: 1.3 percent of the Aclasta-treated patients had atrial fibrillation, a serious heart-rhythm disturbance, compared with 0.5 percent of the other women. Still, the treated patients were not more likely to die than the other group.

Conclusion: Despite the relatively rare side effect, this new treatment is clearly better than the one many women are presently taking. It is likely to improve the quality of life for a great many people.