Treating bone metastases with local therapy in a breast cancer patient resulted in decreased pain and prevented fracture.

What questions did we seek to answer? Pain from bone cancer is debilitating, uncurable and often treated with opioid drugs that reduce a person's quality of life. A recently discovered drug might help patients by preventing bone pain by making new bone while stopping bone destruction caused by the tumor. A patient with stage IV breast cancer, who was in immense pain and could no longer be active, underwent treatment. She had widely distributed metastases from the breast cancer in her liver, lungs, brain and bones. The tumors had traveled to her spine causing immense pain, and she requested treatment with the experimental drug/device ZetaMet™. Via special permission from the US FDA, the patient received the experimental treatment, which has not been approved for use. After FDA approval for the experimental use of ZetaMet, tumors in three bones of the patient's spine were treated. What were the results? 2 years after treatments with ZetaMet for the tumors located in three different spinal bones, the patient is alive, and her pain has become manageable, leading to quality-of-life improvements and resumption of many routine daily activities, such as walking and spending time with family, despite the typical prognosis for this type of cancer (survival <6 months). Further, the treatment led the patient to electively reduce pain medication use by over fourfold, which decreases the serious risks and many complications posed by overuse. What do the results suggest? The experimental treatment, ZetaMet, has a great deal of promise in treating very sick patients with breast cancer that has spread to bone, improving quality of life and reducing pain medication.