Differential therapy of osteoporosis

: In the past decade, we observed progress in the differential diagnosis of osteoporosis, mainly because of advanced radiological and laboratory procedures, including new bone markers. Loss of bone can also be related to primary and secondary forms of osteoporosis. Consequently, secondary osteoporosis (and osteomalacia) should be treated primarily according to the original disease. Although etiopathology of primary osteoporosis is still unclean differential therapy should be applied to the different subgroups (juvenile, postmenopausal, and senile osteoporosis). Furthermore, even patients of the same age and sex can be at risk for osteoporosis or have definite osteoporosis. This can be differentiated in "low or high turnover osteoporosis" and should be diagnosed and treated as described. Conjugated estrogens in combination with progesterone decrease the rate of endometrial carcinoma and have been established to be very effective in the treatment of high turnover osteoporosis and patients at high risk of developing manifest osteoporosis. In combination with calcium (1 g/day) total doses of estrogen can be reduced to 0.3 g/day. The same applies for the treatment of low turnover (mostly manifest) osteoporosis with fluoride. Daily doses of fluoride can be decreased from 80 mg sodium fluoride to 50g in combination with calcium. These reductions of daily fluoride doses decreases the rate of side effects and allows longer control periods, provided that bone measurements demonstrate a beneficial long-term effect. The control periods depend on the sensitivity of the bone density measurements. Special indications, modifications, alterations and additions of further drugs are discussed for the individual patient.