Paediatric patients at risk for glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis benefit from treatment with alendronic acid

Excerpt

Paediatric patients at risk for glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis benefit from treatment with alendronic acid, according to the results of a multicentre, randomised trial presented at the joint annual meeting of the American College of Rheumatology and the Association of Rheumatology Health Professionals. In this trial, 23 such patients (aged 8-18 years) were treated with alendronic acid 35 mg/week or 70 mg/week (n = 12), or placebo, for 18 months. At study end, alendronic acid recipients demonstrated significantly greater improvements in AP spine bone mineral density (BMD) Z scores than placebo recipients. Furthermore, AP spine BMD and Bone Mineral Apparent Density were both improved to a significantly greater extent with alendronic acid than with placebo (14.3% vs 7.8% and 11.3% vs 5.6%, respectively). …