Calcitonin-containing drugs: Health Canada assessing potential cancer risk with long-term use

"Health Canada is informing Canadians that it is assessing the possibility of an increased risk of cancer with long-term use of the drug calcitonin. Patients who are taking a calcitonin medicine who have questions should speak to their health care professional before they consider stopping their calcitonin treatment."

Link: http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ahc-asc/media/advisories-avis/_2012/index-eng.php

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From Medscape:

"July 20, 2012 — The European equivalent of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) yesterday recommended withdrawing calcitonin nasal spray — indicated for treating osteoporosis in the European Union — because of an increased risk for cancer.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) also said that the long-term use of calcitonin-containing medicines delivered by injection or infusion increases the risk for cancer. As a consequence, the EMA recommended that these drugs be used only on a short-term basis for 3 conditions for which they had previously been approved in the European Union: Paget's disease, acute bone loss resulting from sudden immobilization, and hypercalcemia caused by cancer.
Calcitonin in any formulation should not be used to treat osteoporosis at all, the agency said.
In the United States, 2 nasal-spray versions of calcitonin are FDA-approved for treating postmenopausal osteoporosis in women: Fortical (Upsher-Smith Laboratories) and Miacalcin (Novartis). Neither of the labels for the 2 drugs contains restrictions on how they should be used or a warning about the risk for cancer.
Calcitonin, also called calcitonin-salmon, is a synthetic copy of a polypeptide hormone secreted by the ultimobranchial gland of salmon."

Read more: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/767814