Deena Adimoolam, MD, associate fellowship program director in the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Bone Disease at Icahn School of Medicine, Mount Sinai, New York, comments in an email to Reuters Health, “This study has a few limitations, one being that the sample size is very small to make significant conclusions.”
“Patients were studied over a 12-month time frame, which may not have been long enough to evaluate for a clinically significant change in BMD by DXA scan,” she says.
“The main downside to setting a higher BMD target,” she said, “is that majority of patients taking denosumab will have stable BMD—most do not demonstrate an increase in BMD. So if higher BMD is used as a target before discontinuation of denosumab, it might not actually be attainable by many patients.”
“Also, the longer one stays on denosumab, the higher the risk for side effects,” she adds.
Reference
- Solling AS, Harslof T, Langdahl B. Treatment with zoledronate subsequent to denosumab in osteoporosis: A randomized trial. J Bone Miner Res. 2020 May 27. Online ahead of print.
