Zometa(zoledronic acid) VS Xgeva

Hi ladies. I’m a year into treatment which include a zometa infusion every three months. I’m starting to dread the infusions. I get fatigue for about a week and causes pretty bad anxiety. I’m thinking about asking my MO about switching to xgeva. Can you please share your experiences with xgeva or if you switched from zometa is it better? Fewer SE? Please give me some feedback. Thanks

Hi Katy, I've done both. Three years on Zometa, three years on Xgeva. I can't speak to the differences in the side-effects because I didn't (don't) have any side-effects from either drug. Or if I did they were subsumed in the SEs for Faslodex and Femara.

The reason I switched was a convenience one. Having the nurse place an iv every time plus sitting in the chair for the infusion was a total waste of my time and annoyed me to no end. It meant that a trip to the cancer center was 4 hours rather than 2 hours. A shot doesn't take up any time at all. When I move to iv chemo (some time in the next year) I'll switch back to Zometa. After all, I'm in the chair with an iv anyway, may as well save the insurance company some money.

I'm sure you know that they have equivalent efficacy. The biology behind them is different so you may get different side-effects. It's not like Femara and Arimidex where an aromatase inhibitor is an aromatase inhibitor. Zometa is a bisphosphanate. Kinda like Fosamax. Xgeva is a RANK-L inhibitor.

Anyone else have advice here