RESEARCH - Do current management strategies and guidelines adequately address fracture risk?

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Bone. 2006 Feb;38(2 Suppl 2):S13-7. Epub 2006 Jan 3.

Do current management strategies and guidelines adequately address fracture

risk?

McClung MR.

Department of Medical Education, Providence Portland Medical Center,

Portland, OR 97213, USA. mmcclung@...

Deciding which patients are appropriate candidates for our effective

osteoporosis therapies is a clinical challenge. Current guidelines for

treating postmenopausal osteoporosis are based primarily on bone mineral

density (BMD) measurements. There is consensus that postmenopausal women

with osteoporosis, as defined by T-scores of -2.5 and lower, are at high

risk of fracture and are candidates for therapy. However, many older adults

without osteoporosis are at increased risk for fracture, and most fractures

occur in women with higher T-scores. Current BMD-based guidelines are

inconsistent regarding recommendations for treating women without

osteoporosis. Fracture risk assessment is improved by combining BMD and

other important risk factors for fracture, especially greater age and

history of prior fracture. Strategies to estimate absolute fracture risk in

individual patients are being developed. Revised treatment guidelines, based

upon thresholds of absolute fracture risk, will provide the opportunity to

identify and to treat those women who will most benefit from our therapies.

PMID: 16403495

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve & db=pubmed & dopt=Abstra\

ct & list_uids=16403495

Not an MD

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Mayo Clinic in Rochester

http://www.mayoclinic.org/rochester

s Hopkins Medicine

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org