[OT] Drug for Bones Is Newly Linked to Jaw Disease

June 2, 2006

BlankJune 2, 2006

Drug for Bones Is Newly Linked to Jaw Disease

By GINA KOLATA

In the last 10 years, millions of patients have taken a class of drugs that can

prevent agonizing broken and deteriorating bones. The drugs once seemed

perfectly safe and have transformed life for patients with cancer or

osteoporosis.

But recently there have been reports of a serious side effect: death of areas of

bone in the jaw.

Everyone agrees that the condition, osteonecrosis of the jaw, is an uncommon

complication, but that its true incidence is not known. It is estimated that

among the 500,000 American cancer patients who take the drugs because their

disease is affecting their bones, 1 to 10 percent may develop the problem.

As for the millions of osteoporosis patients, who take lower doses, the

condition seems less common. But no one knows how much less. Some oral surgeons

have as many as a couple of dozen cases, but their clinics have become centers

to which patients elsewhere are referred. Among people with osteoporosis, only

15 cases of the new ailment have been reported in the medical literature.

So for now, doctors and dentists are perplexed. Firm data are scarce to

nonexistent, studies that may provide answers are only about to begin, and

medical organizations and drug companies are scrambling to provide guidance,

often based only on hunches. Some dentists are refusing to treat patients taking

the drugs, fearful that the dental work will induce a case of osteonecrosis, and

lawyers are lining up to sue the drugs' makers, saying they failed to give

patients adequate warning.

Doctors say worried patients hearing about the ailment are starting to besiege

them. The patients want to know whether they should stop taking the drugs,

called bisphosphonates. They want to know whether they should shun invasive

dental procedures, like tooth extractions and implants, which appear to set off

the condition. They want to know whether osteonecrosis of the jaw can be treated

and, if so, how likely it is that a person will recover.

Full story

Recommended Posts