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Zoledronate Prevents Morphometric Vertebral Fractures Over 10 Years

By Elana Gotkine HealthDay Reporter

Medically reviewed by Carmen Pope, BPharm. Last updated on Jan 16, 2025.

WEDNESDAY, Jan. 15, 2025 -- For early postmenopausal women, zoledronate administered at baseline and five years is effective for preventing morphometric vertebral fracture, according to a study published in the Jan. 16 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Mark J. Bolland, M.B., Ch.B., Ph.D., from the University of Auckland in New Zealand, and colleagues conducted a 10-year prospective double-blind trial involving early postmenopausal women (age 50 to 60 years) with bone mineral density T scores lower than 0 and higher than −2.5 at the lumbar spine, femoral neck, or hip. Participants were randomly assigned to receive an infusion of zoledronate (5 mg) at baseline and at five years (zoledronate-zoledronate group), zoledronate (5 mg) at baseline and placebo at five years (zoledronate-placebo group), or placebo at both baseline and five years (placebo-placebo group).

Overall, 1,003 of the 1,054 women completed 10 years of follow-up. The researchers found that 6.3, 6.6, and 11.1 percent of women in the zoledronate-zoledronate, zoledronate-placebo, and placebo-placebo groups, respectively, had a new morphometric fracture (relative risks, 0.56 and 0.59 for zoledronate-zoledronate and zoledronate-placebo, respectively, versus placebo-placebo). The relative risks of fragility fracture, any fracture, and major osteoporotic fracture were 0.72, 0.70, and 0.60, respectively, and 0.79, 0.77, and 0.71, respectively, for zoledronate-zoledronate versus placebo-placebo and for zoledronate-placebo versus placebo-placebo.

"Intravenous zoledronate administered once every five years reduced the incidence of morphometric vertebral fractures during a 10-year period," the authors write.

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Disclaimer: Statistical data in medical articles provide general trends and do not pertain to individuals. Individual factors can vary greatly. Always seek personalized medical advice for individual healthcare decisions.

© 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Posted January 2025

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