Modalities of prescription of biochemical markers of bone turnover in french hospitals

Biochemical markers of bone turnover have for several years been considered as valuable parameters in research clinical studies, but their use in individual patients is still debated. Recently several position papers have proposed guidelines for their use in clinical practice in patients with post menopausal osteoporosis. In the present article, we report the results of a survey which aims at comparing the actual modalities of prescription of French physicians with the above-mentioned recommendations. We contacted by phone clinical chemists from 158 different hospitals and asked them to transmit to the concerned physicians of their hospital a detailed questionnaire for assessing which bone marker(s) is (are) prescribed and for which purpose (s), and if not prescribed, the reason of non prescription. We were able to analyze 309 questionnaires from 89 hospitals including 5 specialties, rheumatology (35.9%), endocrinology (18.1%), gynecology (11.0%), internal medicine (22.0%) and geriatry (12.9%). The results showed large discrepancies between the mode of prescription of a subset of physicians and the guidelines. The most often evoked reason for non prescription was a lack of information about bone markers suggesting a need for teaching courses. This survey has also shown that many physicians do not know exactly which parameters are effectively measured in their hospital and which are addressed to specialized laboratories underlining the importance of the dialogue between clinicians and clinical chemists. We propose that in a given hospital, the present article may serve as a basis for a discussion between clinicians and biologists about the development and/or the optimization of the measurements of these markers of bone turnover.