Patients suffering from rheumatic diseases or osteoporosis often suffer critical losses in bone mineral density (BMD). Alendronate is one medication prescribed to build or prevent further loss of BMD.

Holcomb and Rothenberg (A-3) looked at 96 women taking alendronate to determine if a difference existed in the mean percent change in BMD among five different primary diagnosis classifications.

Group 1 patients were diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Group 2 patients were a mixed collection of patients with diseases including lupus, Wegener’s granulomatosis and polyarteritis, and other vasculitic diseases (LUPUS). Group 3 patients had polymyalgia rheumatica or temporal arthritis (PMRTA). Group 4 patients had osteoarthritis (OA) and group 5 patients had osteoporosis

(O) with no other rheumatic diseases identified in the medical record. Changes in BMD are shown in the following table.

Diagnosis RA LUPUS PMRTA OA O 11.091 7.412 2.961 3.669 11.146 2.937 24.414 5.559 0.293 7.816 0.838 15.968 10.025 4.761 8.394 4.563 4.082 5.349 3.156 3.527 2.832 0.093 6.645 1.719 6.835 4.839 1.369 0.185 4.329 6.445 3.321 1.850 11.288 1.302 1.234 20.243 1.493 3.933 3.997 5.299 2.817 3.290 1.864 9.669 7.260 10.734 3.544 8.992 5.386 4.659 5.546 1.399 4.160 6.120 3.868 1.137 0.497 1.160 25.655 6.209 7.521 0.592 0.247 5.640 0.073 3.950 5.372 3.514 8.684 0.674 6.721 2.308 0.372 9.354 9.950 15.981 21.311 2.610 10.820 9.646 10.831 5.682 7.280 5.188 3.351 6.605 1.892 9.557 7.507 16.553 5.075 0.163 12.767 3.481 0.917 15.853 Source: Data provided courtesy of John P. Holcomb, Ph.D. and Ralph J. Rothenberg, M.D.