This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Related letters  • Related article  • Similar articles in JAMA  Topic Collections  • Rheumatology  • Osteoporosis  • Women's Health  • Women's Health, Other  • Drug Therapy  • Adverse Effects  • Alert me on articles by topic  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

To the Editor: In the conclusions of the report on the Fracture Intervention Trial (FIT) Long-term Extension (FLEX), Dr Black and colleagues¹ state that "the results confirm the safety of alendronate for up to 10 years including no increased fracture risk with long-term alendronate use."¹ However, we do not believe that this study design warrants this conclusion. There is no group that received only placebo; those patients included in the "placebo" group had previously received alendronate for a mean of 5 years. Therefore, long-term alendronate safety cannot be determined from this study and requires a different trial.

In addition, patients who had taken alendronate, either 5 mg/d or 10 mg/d, in the FIT study were included in the same group for the FLEX study. It would be interesting to know the incidence of fractures in these 2 populations separately and whether there is any dose-related effect.

Finally, statistically significant higher . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Juan Erviti, PharmD, PhD
jervitil@cfnavarra.es

Javier Gorricho, PharmD
Drug Prescribing Service
Servicio Navarro de Salud
Pamplona, Spain

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?

RELATED LETTERS

Use of Alendronate After 5 Years of Treatment
Susan M. Ott
JAMA. 2007;297(18):1979.
EXTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Use of Alendronate After 5 Years of Treatment
Pierre D. Delmas
JAMA. 2007;297(18):1979-1980.
EXTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Use of Alendronate After 5 Years of Treatment—Reply
Dennis M. Black, Ann V. Schwartz, Steven R. Cummings, Jane A. Cauley, and Lisa Palermo
JAMA. 2007;297(18):1980-1981.
EXTRACT | FULL TEXT  

RELATED ARTICLE

Effects of Continuing or Stopping Alendronate After 5 Years of Treatment: The Fracture Intervention Trial Long-term Extension (FLEX): A Randomized Trial
Dennis M. Black, Ann V. Schwartz, Kristine E. Ensrud, Jane A. Cauley, Silvina Levis, Sara A. Quandt, Suzanne Satterfield, Robert B. Wallace, Douglas C. Bauer, Lisa Palermo, Lois E. Wehren, Antonio Lombardi, Arthur C. Santora, Steven R. Cummings, and for the FLEX Research Group
JAMA. 2006;296(24):2927-2938.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT