In a trial, just two annual injections of Zometa cut by 35 percent the risk that breast tumors would return in a study of young women. Currently, the Novartis drug is used to treat cancer that spread to the bone and, in some cases, osteoporosis.

In the study of 1,803 patients, about 6 percent of women getting Zometa suffered a relapse within five years, compared with 9 percent who didn’t receive the drug, according to data presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Chicago, Bloomberg News writes.

The study, which funded in part by Novartis, is the first to show the medication can slow cancer in addition to protecting bones. Women getting the drug had fewer problems with all types of recurrences, including local and distant disease, tumors in the opposite breast and in the bone, Bloomberg notes.

The study involved younger, premenopausal women with early stage breast cancer fueled by hormones. All patients were given treatment to suppress their ovaries, as well as tamoxifen or AstraZeneca’s Arimidex, with or without Zometa. There were no differences in results between patients getting tamoxifen and Arimidex, the study found, which was also funded by AstraZeneca, Bloomberg points out.

“In my humble view, it’s entirely the wrong message that all women should be getting this drug starting tomorrow,” Eric Winer, professor at Harvard Medical School and director of the breast oncology program at the Dana-Faber Cancer Institute in Boston, tells Bloomberg. “It’s not a terribly toxic drug, but all drugs have toxicities. Within the narrowly defined group of women who got the drug, this study would give one strong impetus to use Zometa.”