Maine Researcher Announces Major Osteoporosis Treatment Findings

Date: August 10, 2006

Bar Harbor, Maine - Maine researcher Clifford A. Rosen, M.D., and colleagues announced that in clinical trials, two well-known treatments for osteoporosis are much more effective when patients receive them sequentially. The findings are published in the August 11 New England Journal of Medicine.

In the trials, postmenopausal women in Bangor, New York, Philadelphia and Minneapolis who took a bone-building drug (parathyroid hormone or PTH) for one year, followed by a year on a standard drug that fights bone loss (alendronate), experienced greater increases in bone density than has been reported from any other drug regimen. Bone density is the standard predictor of fracture risk associated with osteoporosis.

"This is really exciting," said Rosen, director of the Maine Center for Osteoporosis Research and Education at St. Joseph's Hospital in Bangor and a senior staff scientist at The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor. "We found almost a 30 percent increase in bone density with sequential use of the drugs.

"We're looking at ways to maximally optimize our use of osteoporosis drugs," he continued. "PTH is a very powerful drug and it works, but it has to be given in the right way. If you give patients PTH only for a year and don't follow up with any other treatment, they're going to lose a lot of the bone mass they gained in that first year. And since it's a very expensive treatment--some $7,800 a year--it's really critical to follow it up with another form of therapy that will continue to consolidate the bone mass gains."

In 2003, Rosen and colleagues published research findings that administering both PTH and alendronate simultaneously does not increase bone density.

According to Rosen, the new clinical trials both demonstrate the value of translational research and show that the ideal of individualized medicine--based on each individual's own genetic makeup--is becoming reality. "Our clinical research with PTH began with animal studies more than 10 years ago with Dr. Wesley Beamer at The Jackson Laboratory and colleagues at other institutions," he said, "looking at the role of PTH in building bone in mice and rats. We have found that some mouse strains respond spectacularly to PTH, building lots of bone mass, and some don't. And lo and behold, among the women in our recent study, some experienced a huge increase in bone density--100 percent or more--while others had no response."

The new research suggests the potential for identifying in advance those patients most likely to benefit from PTH treatment. "It would save a lot of money, and a lot of patient inconvenience," Rosen noted.

"This is the first thinking in the bone field about tailoring pharmacology to patients' genetic makeup, and it's very promising."

The August 11 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine also includes a "Clinical Practice" article by Rosen and an editorial on bone density treatments, a rare "hat trick" in the world of major research journals.

The Jackson Laboratory, founded in 1929, is the world's largest mammalian genetics research institution, with facilties in Bar Harbor, Maine, and West Sacramento, Calif. Its research staff of more than 450 investigates the genetic basis of cancers, heart disease, osteoporosis, Alzheimer's disease, glaucoma, diabetes, and many other human diseases and disorders. The Laboratory is also the world's source for nearly 3,000 strains of genetically defined mice, home of the Mouse Genome Database and many other publicly available information resources, and an international hub for scientific courses, conferences, training and education.

Contact(s): Joyce Peterson, joyce.peterson@jax.org

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