New Drug Posts Gains in Bone Mineral Density

It's a press release decribing a presentation that was given at the annual meeting of the Society for Bone and Mineral Research.  From the "Action Points":

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"Inhibition of the cathepsin K pathway of bone metabolism with odanacatib showed promise in this study as a novel approach for treating osteoporosis, even in women who have received other therapies.

"Note that odanacatib also was associated with significant changes in biomarkers of bone metabolism including decreases in bone resorption, while preserving bone formation.

"Note that this study was published as an abstract and presented at a conference. These data and conclusions should be considered to be preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal."

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The findings are really interesting:  the drug (a monoclonal antibody) decreased bone resorption but did not decrease - and maybe even increased - bone formation. This is different from the bisphosphonates, which seem to shut down everything so bone doesn't heal.  The press release mentioned that 11 people in the treatment group (those getting the new drug) dropped out of the study because of "adverse events," compared to only 4 people in the control (placebo) group. The press release didn't mention what those adverse events might have been.

Finally, as noted in the "Action Points," this is a very early study. The work isn't even published yet - just presented at a conference and "published" as an abstract. Having an abstract appear in a meeting proceedings doesn't count as a publication:  it doesn't provide enough details of the study; it's not peer-reviewed; and nobody can reproduce the experiments to see if they actually work the way the authors claim.

So, we wait.  In the meantime, I have a regularly scheduled DEXA bone density scan on Wednesday, to see if 4 years of Arimidex have finally messed with my bones.  Things were stable at the 2-year point.

otter