Fifty one papers relating to osteoporosis were presented at the American College of Rheumatology meeting in November 1998. One study by Lindsay and colleagues demonstrated that adding alendronate (Fosamax) to ongoing hormone replacement therapy (HRT) in women with postmenopausal osteoporosis provides significant increases in bone mineral density at the lumbar spin, hip and femoral neck. The study also found that adverse drug reactions were not significantly different in the Alendronate HRT combination group when compared to HRT and placebo. The combination was well tolerated. The study is targeted to be published by May 1999 in the Annals of Internal Medicine. To date there are no large published randomized clinical trials of the addition of bisphosphonates to HRT or vice versa.
All abstracts from the meeting are available at http://ex2.excerptamedica.com/98acr
