Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Osteopenia and osteoporosis develop with aging in thalassemia patients despite clinical treatment therapy has improved. Bisphosphonates, which are potent inhibitors of osteoclastic bone resorption, have been recently used to correct the bone abnormality in thalassemia with encouraging results. Bisphosphonates are a class of drugs that prevent the loss of bone mass, used to treat osteoporosis and similar diseases. They are the most commonly prescribed drugs used to treat osteoporosis. Bisphosphonates act by inhibiting osteoclastic recruitment and maturation, preventing the development of monocyte precursors into osteoclasts, inducing osteoclast apoptosis and interrupting their attachment to the bone.

Scope: The scope of the present work was to meta-analyse available data concerning the role of bisphosphonates in thalassemia-induced osteoporosis.

Methods: A search was carried out to find relevant studies and reviews published up to date. The database used was Pubmed. The MeSH terms used were: bisphosphonate, thalassemia and/or anaemia, osteoporosis, which yielded 33 results. From those 22 has been selected for further processing as more relevant to the topic of study.

Results: Based on the meta-analysis of selected studies it appeared that bisphosphonates could prove an effective treatment for osteoporosis. In particular, zoledronic acid was effective in the treatment of osteoporosis, while clodronate did not appear to be equally effective. In total, bone mineral density as well as markers of bone remodelling (CTX, bALP, OPG, etc.) were higher in the bisphosphonate-treatment groups as compared to the placebo group.

Conclusions: Cross-examination of several studies suggests that bisphosphonates are to be considered as a therapeutic option for the treatment of thalassemia-induced osteoporosis.