Risk of bone fracture among postmenopausal breast cancer survivors

Reported by Susan Aldridge, PhD, medical journalist

A study shows that postmenopausal women who have survived breast cancer run an increased risk of fractures compared to other women of their age.
Previous work has pointed to reduced bone density among women who have had chemotherapy for breast cancer. Now a report from the Women's Health Initiative looks at the occurrence of bone fractures over a five year period in over 5,000 postmenopausal women who had had breast cancer. Researchers at the University of Arizona compared this group with over 80,000 women who did not have breast cancer.

Fracture rates were higher at all sites but the hip in the breast cancer survivors. The results suggest that there could be as many as 13,000 excess fractures among the two million postmenopausal breast cancer survivors in the USA. Clearly it is time to develop some strategies to protect bone density among postmenopausal women with breast cancer.

Source
Archives of Internal Medicine 14th March 2005 Volume 165 pages 552-558

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