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Treatment options for osteoporosis

WASHINGTON, July 24 (UPI) -- Medications that need to be taken less often may provide a new option to help patients suffering from osteoporosis comply with medical regimens.

A new study compared compliance with once-a-week osteoporosis pills to those that must only be taken once a month. It showed that patients who were given the monthly drug were 47 percent more likely to follow their prescriptions.

More than 1,000 women took part in the study, with 542 receiving alendronate, also known as Fosamax, once a week, and 534 receiving ibandronate, or Boniva, once a month. The study was conducted over a six-month period.

The women who took ibandronate received a packet of information about osteoporosis at the start of the study. They also received reminder phone calls from trained nurses three days before they were scheduled to take each dose. The nurses also provided encouragement and answered any questions patients had.

Dr. Eamonn Brankin of Church Street Practice, Coatbridge, Lanarkshire, Scotland, one of the authors of the study, said one concern with the monthly pills was that people would simply forget to take them, which is why the phone support system was added. The telephone support system is also offered to patients outside of the study who take ibandronate.

As long as you have a habit where it is engrained to (take a pill), it makes drug therapy very easy," Brankin said.

Out of the 835 women who managed to complete the study, 39 percent of patients on weekly alendronate were still taking the medication. For those women who had been taking monthly ibandronate, that number had risen to nearly 57 percent.

"Fifty-seven percent is not ideal, I must admit," Brankin said. He added that, with a lot of effort, it is possible to have even greater persistence with weekly pills, but "when you look at the long-term effort, they're not very sustainable." The monthly regimen is.

Problems with complying with prescribed medical regimens are serious concerns of healthcare professionals. Brankin said that only about half of people who are receiving treatment for chronic conditions in developing countries take their medications as prescribed.

Brankin said the study shows the combination of a phone support line and pills that are taken less frequently leads to a greater rate of compliance.

"People prefer to take something once a month as opposed to once a week because of the convenience," he said. "I think it's about giving patients more of a choice, and that's an important thing."

Although the development of medications that are taken monthly is helping osteoporosis patients stick to treatments, this will not be applicable to treatments for other conditions. In bone therapy, the medication can stay in the bones for a long period of time, therefore giving the potential for drugs to be taken less frequently, Brankin said. However, medications for most other conditions have a much shorter half-life and need to be metabolized within 24 hours.

Osteoporosis medications greatly help those suffering from this serious and common condition.

Dr. Alun Cooper, a family doctor from the Bridge Medical Centre in Crawley, United Kingdom, and the study's main author, said it is estimated that half of all women over 50 will experience fractures due to brittle bones. Therefore, increasing compliance will have a great effect on women's health.

Brankin said billions of dollars are paid as a result of fractures resulting from osteoporosis every year. Therefore, increasing compliance with medications also has significant economic impacts.

The study is in the August issue of the International Journal of Clinical Practice, IJCP. It was funded by Roche Products Limited, the manufacturers of ibandronate.