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 articles  • 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 FLEX study, Dr Black and colleagues¹ investigated the effects of discontinuation of alendronate in women following 5 years of use. There was no significant difference between the morphometric vertebral fracture rates in the group that switched to placebo and in the group that continued to receive alendronate. However, the percentage of clinically recognized vertebral fractures was greater in the placebo group.

It is not clear if all of the clinical fractures in the placebo group were also morphometric fractures. If they were, then 50% (23/46) of the morphometric fractures in the placebo group were also identified as clinical fractures. However, in the alendronate group, only 27% (16/60) of the morphometric fractures would have been clinical fractures. In the original FIT study, 22.6% of the morphometric fractures were identified as clinical fractures, and this increased to 30% for severe fractures (vertebral height loss >30%). On the . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Susan M. Ott, MD
smott@u.washington.edu
Division of Metabolism
University of Washington
Seattle

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

RELATED LETTERS

Use of Alendronate After 5 Years of Treatment
Juan Erviti and Javier Gorricho
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 ARTICLES

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  

Reduction of Vertebral Fracture Risk in Postmenopausal Women With Osteoporosis Treated With Raloxifene: Results From a 3-Year Randomized Clinical Trial
Bruce Ettinger, Dennis M. Black, Bruce H. Mitlak, Ronald K. Knickerbocker, Thomas Nickelsen, Harry K. Genant, Claus Christiansen, Pierre D. Delmas, Jose R. Zanchetta, Jacob Stakkestad, Claus C. Glüer, Kathryn Krueger, Fredric J. Cohen, Stephen Eckert, Kristine E. Ensrud, Louis V. Avioli, Paul Lips, Steven R. Cummings, and for the Multiple Outcomes of Raloxifene Evaluation Investigators
JAMA. 1999;282(7):637-645.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT