Journal of pain and symptom management
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Sep 2008
Intravenous ibandronate rapidly reduces pain, neurochemical indices of central sensitization, tumor burden, and skeletal destruction in a mouse model of bone cancer.
Over half of all chronic cancer pain arises from metastases to bone and bone cancer pain is one of the most difficult of all persistent pain states to fully control. Currently, bone pain is treated primarily by opioid-based therapies, which are frequently accompanied by significant unwanted side effects. ⋯ Intravenous ibandronate administered once or in three consecutive doses reduced ongoing and movement-evoked bone cancer pain-related behaviors, neurochemical markers of central sensitization, tumor burden, and tumor-induced bone destruction. These results support limited clinical trials that suggest the potential of ibandronate to rapidly attenuate bone pain and illuminate the mechanisms that may be responsible for limiting pain and disease progression.