PRIMARY RESEARCH Inhibition of breast cancer

Full list of author information is available at the end of the articleBackground Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in women in developed countries and over 50 % of patients have bone involvement at relapse [1-4]. Bone metastasis is a major epidemiological and clinical prob-lem in women with breast cancer, causing pain and other serious complications such as pathologic fracture, spinal cord compression and hypercalcemia with poor quality of life and prognosis [5,6]. The skeleton is characterized by a dynamic balance be-tween osteoclast (induced bone resorption) and osteo-blast (stimulated bone formation) bone remodeling, which maintains physiological bone turnover. The diffu-sion of tumor cells in bone tissue breaks this process causing the disruption of bone integrity and serious skel-etal complications [7-9]. Bone metastases from breast cancer are most often lytic, so that bone homeostasis i