After Broken Hip, an Osteoporosis Shot Can Decrease Risk of More Fractures
Posted on: Wednesday, 19 September 2007, 09:00 CDT
By Rita Rubin
A new once-a-year intravenous osteoporosis treatment significantly reduced the risk of additional fractures and death in men and women who had broken a hip, researchers reported Monday.
An estimated 10 million Americans have osteoporosis -- 20% of them men -- and each year more than 300,000 of them suffer a hip fracture, according to the National Osteoporosis Foundation.
Older adults who break a hip are more likely to die in the following year and 2 1/2 times more likely to suffer another osteoporosis-related fracture than people the same age, the study's authors write in this week's New England Journal of Medicine. They presented their results Monday at a medical conference in Honolulu.
This is the first study to focus on lowering fracture risk in older patients who already have broken a bone, says lead author Kenneth Lyles, a geriatrician and endocrinologist at North Carolina's Duke University and Durham Veterans Affairs medical centers.
Lyles' team enrolled 2,127 men and women who had broken their hip within the previous three months.
Half received a yearly intravenous dose of Reclast, or zoledronic acid, which last month won Food and Drug Administration approval for the treatment of osteoporosis. The rest got a placebo. Everyone also took calcium and vitamin D supplements. Reclast maker Novartis funded the study.
On average, scientists followed the patients for nearly two years. In that time, 13.9% of placebo patients had a new fracture, compared with 8.6% of Reclast patients, a 35% reduction. For reasons not clear, Reclast patients also were 28% less likely to die from any cause.
Despite their higher fracture risk, most elderly people with broken hips don't get optimal treatment for osteoporosis, Karim Calis and Frank Pucino, pharmacy researchers at the National Institutes of Health, write in an accompanying editorial. Either their doctors don't prescribe any treatment, or they don't take it as directed, according to the editorial.
Reclast is a bisphosphonate, as are Boniva, Fosamax and Actonel. Boniva is available as a pill or a once-every-three-months injection; Fosamax and Actonel are pills. Taking the pills is tricky: To trim the risk of digestive tract problems, such as an inflamed esophagus, patients must take the pills first thing in the morning on an empty stomach and wait at least a half hour before lying down or eating or drinking anything besides water. (c) Copyright 2005 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.
Source: USA TODAY
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