ASBMR responds to NEJM's study on biphosphonates
ASBMR calls for more research to refine recommendations further
2012-05-11
(Press-News.org) WASHINGTON, May 9, 2012 – The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced today that physicians should reassess patients with osteoporosis who are being treated with a class of drugs called bisphosphonates after three to five years of therapy to determine whether they should continue treatment. Bisphosphonates are a widely prescribed class of drugs that are proven to be effective in reducing common bone fractures in people with osteoporosis and at high risk of fractures. Bisphosphonates include the drugs Aclasta, Actonel, Aredia, Bondronat, Boniva, Didronel, Fosamax, Fosavance, Reclast, Skelid and Zometa.
ASBMR Recommendations to Physicians and Patients
The American Society for Bone and Mineral Research (ASBMR) believes that for the vast majority of patients, bisphosphonates are an important weapon against problems caused by osteoporosis and the benefits outweigh the risk of taking them.
However, ASBMR urges physicians to consider each patient's case individually since the optimal length of bisphosphonate therapy remains unknown and must be considered on a case-by-case basis. Patients whose fracture risk has clearly been reduced by bisphosphonates might be candidates for discontinuing the drug. However, individuals who after three to five years of taking bisphosphonates still have a high risk for fracture may want to remain on the medication because the risks of stopping treatment may not be the best option. For high-risk patients, there is strong data that the drug remains very useful in preventing fractures caused by osteoporosis.
More research is critically needed to help guide patients and their physicians on what to do because major research gaps remain:
More conclusive data is needed on the safety and effectiveness of taking bisphosphonates for more than three to five years and how bones respond when patients discontinue treatment. In the meantime, the FDA's advice provides important precautions.
Physicians need more guidance on how to monitor and treat patients who have discontinued
bisphosphonate therapy.
Data is also needed on variation in response to the discontinuation of treatment among different brands of bisphosphonates.
These important research priorities are identified in the May issue of the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research and ASBMR believes they should be the next focus of osteoporosis research.
At least 10 million Americans currently suffer from osteoporosis and another 34 million more have low bone mass, making them more susceptible to osteoporosis. Without intervention, one in two women and one in four men age 50 and older will experience a fracture due to osteoporosis. Many individuals – men and women – do not know they are at risk for the disease. Twenty years ago, physicians had very few treatment options for osteoporosis. Today, many high quality clinical trials have established that bisphosphonates prevent most types of serious fractures and thus are of benefit to millions of patients.
Despite this, osteoporosis is undertreated. Many patients – even those at risk for osteoporosis – are never screened; with the result that osteoporosis goes undiagnosed, is untreated and progresses to debilitating fractures that are dangerous to patients and costly to treat.
###
ASBMR Offers Webinars on the Scientific Evidence and Management of Patients on Bisphosphonates
To help researchers and physicians understand the implications of the FDA recommendations and factors to consider for patients taking bisphosphonates, ASBMR will host two webinars in the coming weeks.
The first webinar on the Efficacy and Safety of Long-Term Use of Bisphosphonates for the Treatment and Prevention of Osteoporosis will be held on May 17th and facilitate further discussion of the scientific evidence regarding bisphosphonates. The webinar speakers will include Dr. Theresa Kehoe with the FDA Center for Drug Evaluation, as well as several ASBMR experts.
The second webinar on Case Studies on the Management of Patients on Bisphosphonates for the Treatment and Prevention of Osteoporosis will be held in late May and facilitate further discussion of the management of patients on bisphosphonates.
To register for either webinar, visit http://www.asbmr.org/Education/Webinars.aspx.
Media Availability
To schedule an interview with an ASBMR expert, including Dr. Sundeep Khosla or Dr. Elizabeth Shane – lead authors of ASBMR Task Force reports issued in 2007 and 2010 on bisphosphonate use and osteonecrosis of the jaw and atypical femur fractures – please contact Sara Knoll at sknoll@burnesscommunications.com or (301)652-1558 or Ann Elderkin at aelderkin@asbmr.org or (202) 367-1161.
About ASBMR:
The American Society for Bone and Mineral Research (ASBMR) is the premier professional, scientific and medical society established to promote excellence in bone and mineral research and to facilitate the translation of that research into clinical practice. The ASBMR has a membership of nearly 4,000 physicians, basic research scientists, and clinical investigators from around the world.
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2012-05-11
Using ice-penetrating radar instruments flown on aircraft, a team of scientists from the U.S. and U.K. have uncovered a previously unknown sub-glacial basin nearly the size of New Jersey beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) near the Weddell Sea. The location, shape and texture of the mile-deep basin suggest that this region of the ice sheet is at a greater risk of collapse than previously thought.
Team members at The University of Texas at Austin compared data about the newly discovered basin to data they previously collected from other parts of the WAIS that also ...
2012-05-11
In a study published in Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, Professor Kwan, who is also head of the clinical epilepsy program at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and an international authority in antiepileptic drug development, believes a pattern emerges in the early stages.
"Our research shows a pattern based on how a person responds to initial treatment and specifically, to their first two courses of drug treatment," said Dr Kwan.
For the study, 1,098 people from Scotland between the ages of nine and 93 with newly diagnosed epilepsy ...
2012-05-11
The superbugs have met their match.
Conceived at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), it comes in the form of a coating which has a magnetic-like feature that attracts bacteria and kills them without the need for antibiotics.
The killer coating, which has shown to destroy 99 per cent of the bacteria and fungi that it comes in contact with, is now being used by two companies: a contact lens manufacturer and a company specialising in animal care products.
The next step is to extend its use in a wide range of biomedical and consumer products, ranging from implants ...
2012-05-11
LOS ANGELES (May 9, 2012) – Scientists have confirmed that mutations of a gene are responsible for some cases of a rare, inherited disease that causes progressive muscle degeneration and weakness: spinal muscular atrophy with lower extremity predominance, also known as SMA-LED.
"Typical spinal muscular atrophies begin in infancy or early childhood and are fatal, involving all motor neurons, but SMA-LED predominantly affects nerve cells controlling muscles of the legs. It is not fatal and the prognosis is good, although patients usually are moderately disabled and require ...
2012-05-11
With high UV levels continuing in Queensland this autumn, young people are at risk of suffering the worst skin damage they will receive during their lifetime, research from Queensland University of Technology (QUT) has found.
Researcher Professor Michael Kimlin from QUT's AusSun Research Lab said the study found UV exposure during a person's first 18 years of life was the most critical for cancer-causing skin damage and skin aging.
Professor Kimlin said while people aged over 50 had the slowest rate of skin degradation, results indicated that damage still occurred even ...
2012-05-11
Highlights
Children with a particular kidney immune disorder that is unresponsive to standard treatments do not benefit from the immune drug rituximab.
Additional studies are needed to fully understand the disease and to develop effective therapies for hard-to-treat cases.
Washington, DC (May 10, 2012) — The drug rituximab, an antibody that targets the immune system and is often used to treat immune disorders such as lymphoma and arthritis, has recently emerged as a potential treatment for a childhood kidney disorder known as idiopathic nephrotic syndrome (INS). While ...
2012-05-11
Researchers at the Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine and Feinstein Institute for Medical Research conducted a retrospective analysis which found that morbid obesity impedes kidney donation. In fact, in the analysis of 104 potential living kidney donors, 23 (22 percent) donors were classified as morbidly obese, only three (13 percent) of whom were able to successfully lose weight and donate their kidney. This data will be presented at the National Kidney Foundation (NKF) 2012 Spring Clinical Meetings, to be held from May 9-13 in Washington, DC.
Morbidly obese ...
2012-05-11
People don't always do as their neighbors do, and the same is true of neighboring chimpanzees. That's according to a report published online on May 10 in the Cell Press journal Current Biology featuring observations of wild chimps as they used hammers to crack nuts.
"In humans, cultural differences are an essential part of what distinguishes neighboring groups that live in very similar environments," said Lydia Luncz of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. "For the first time, a very similar situation has been found in wild chimpanzees ...
2012-05-11
Social jetlag—a syndrome related to the mismatch between the body's internal clock and the realities of our daily schedules—does more than make us sleepy. It is also contributing to the growing tide of obesity, according to a large-scale epidemiological study reported online on May 10 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication.
"We have identified a syndrome in modern society that has not been recognized until recently," said Till Roenneberg of the University of Munich. "It concerns an increasing discrepancy between the daily timing of the physiological clock and the ...
2012-05-11
Heart attack patients in North Carolina who were rushed directly to hospitals equipped to do percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) received treatment significantly faster than patients first taken to hospitals unequipped to perform PCI and then later transferred for treatment, according to research reported at the American Heart Association's Quality of Care and Outcomes Research 2012 Scientific Sessions.
The study focused on the most serious form of heart attack, ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI). A STEMI typically involves complete blockage of the blood ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] ASBMR responds to NEJM's study on biphosphonates
ASBMR calls for more research to refine recommendations further
