FDA assigns drug master file to European cancer group.

Dr. Gregory R. Mundy Texas, San Antonio, but they also decrease the number of tumor cells that are in bone, and "we guess they do that by changing the bone environment and making the bone a less hospitable place for the cancer cells to grow." The majority of breast cancer patients in whom cancer has spread beyond its primary origin experience metastases to bone. For these patients, a loss in bone, also known as resorption, creates severe pain due to the fragility of bone and increases the number of fractures. Research into treating bone metastases and its related consequences has increased as a result of the development and application ofbisphosphonates, including clodronate. "Increased survival in patients, however," said Mundy, "isn't clear yet but may be very likely." "All of this is extremely exciting work," added V. Craig Jordan, Ph.D., director of the Lynn Sage Breast Cancer Research Program at the Robert H. Lurie Cancer Center, Chicago. "It [clodronate] is a good example of translational research in which there has been lots of suspicions in model systems, but now we're getting the first flood of information."