RightHealth Daily Dose » osteonecrosis http://dailydose.righthealth.com We feature the one health item you simply cannot afford to miss. Fri, 19 Mar 2010 04:18:31 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 Osteoporosis Drugs Associated With Serious Bone Side Effects http://dailydose.righthealth.com/cautions-concerns/osteoporosis-drug-associated-with-serious-bone-side-effects/ http://dailydose.righthealth.com/cautions-concerns/osteoporosis-drug-associated-with-serious-bone-side-effects/#comments Tue, 06 Jan 2009 05:59:19 +0000 Steven http://dailydose.kosmix.com/?p=1048 One of the lesser known risk factors of taking the bisphosphonate class of osteoporosis drugs is osteonecrosis of the jaw bone (ONJ). Osteonecrosis is, quite literally, death of the bone cells. Previous studies already suggested that patients taking bisphosphonates, such as Fosomax, were at increased risk of developing ONJ, but this study shows that the side effect may be more common than had previously been suggested, even with short term use of the drugs since the drugs take so long to leave bone tissue (once stopped it takes 10 years for drug levels to halve). Researchers at University of Southern California’s School of Dentistry say of the 208 patients they identified for the study as having used Fosamax, nine of them had ONJ. That is a significant 4% of patients. The researchers are hoping that further studies will confirm their findings so that more physicians and dentists will be encouraged to speak to their patients regarding this potentially severe side effect.

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