Bone Abstracts

A number of cancers develop in the skeleton or will metastasize to bone, including multiple myeloma and solid tumours such as breast and prostate cancer. Once established in the skeleton, cancer cells have the ability to modify the environment and cause devastating bone disease. The last decade has seen considerable progress in defining the critical cellular and molecular mechanisms responsible and also identified new roles for the cells of bone in the pathogenesis of metastas...

Mechanosenstitive osteocytes in bone supress the local production of sclerostin in response to mechanical loading, to increase osteoblast differentiation and bone mass. In addition, sclerostin is secreted from osteocytes into the circulation. Serum sclerostin has been shown to correlate with osteoporosis and low bone mass, however there is limited evidence by which to determine whether serum sclerostin is acting either a biomark...

Introduction: Patients with multiple myeloma (MM) commonly present with devastating bone disease mediated by increased bone resorption and suppressed bone formation. We have previously shown that blocking activity of the Wnt antagonist Dkk-1 promotes osteoblastogenesis and inhibits development of bone lesions in experimental models of MM. In the 5T murine models of MM, tumour cells home to the bone marrow. Injection of 5T2MM cells into C57BLKalwRij mice results in bone disease...

Multiple myeloma is characterized by extensive bone marrow tumour and destructive osteolytic lesions. Both increased bone resorption and suppressed bone formation result in lesions and pathological fractures. Anti-resorptive therapies prevent further bone loss but patients continue to fracture, arguing for new therapies which increase bone strength. Anti-Sclerostin (Anti-Scl) is a potent stimulator of bone formation, is currently in clinical trials for osteoporosis, however it...