Osteomalacia syndrome – a social-economic role and clinical diagnostic aspects

Purpose. To describe the dynamics of paying scientific medical community’ attention to the problem of osteomalacia on the basis of the quantitative analysis of bibliographic search in MEDLINE database, as well as on selective studying the publication content. Material and Мethods. The annual quantitative dynamics of the publications for the period of 1960-2012 analyzed using the method of statistical mathematical modeling. For this purpose dynamic series were formed containing the data about the number of annual publications which approximated by forth-order polynomial spline obtaining a trend model with approximation parameters p=0.1 (P less 0.05). Results. The number of the publications on osteomalacia problem has been established to decrease since 1984 simultaneously with exponential increase in the number of the publications related to osteoporosis diagnosis by double-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA). Since 1970 steady increase demonstrated in the proportion of the annual publications related to description of cases or observation series of patients with osteomalacia where diagnostic biopsy of bone structures performed in order to determine the tactics or efficiency of treatment in patients with chronic renal disease and others. Conclusion. It has been suggested that a part of patients with osteomalacia are treated in the guise of osteoporosis diagnosis. Therefore in case of significant bone mass reduction before prescribing anti-osteoporotic therapy biopsy should be performed in order to differentiate between osteoporosis and osteomalacia.