For early postmenopausal women, zoledronate administered at baseline and five years is effective for preventing morphometric vertebral fracture, according to a study. published in the Jan. 16 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine,

Mark J. Bolland, MB, Ch.B., Ph.D., from the University of Auckland in New Zealand, and colleagues conducted a 10-year prospective double-blind trial involving early postmenopausal women (age 50 to 60 years) with bone mineral density T scores lower than 0 and higher than −2.5 at the lumbar spine, femoral neck, or hip.

Participants were randomly assigned to receive an infusion of zoledronate (5 mg) at baseline and at five years (zoledronate-zoledronate group), zoledronate (5 mg) at baseline and placebo at five years (zoledronate-placebo group), or placebo at both. baseline and five years (placebo-placebo group).

Overall, 1,003 of the 1,054 women completed 10 years of follow-up. The researchers found that 6.3, 6.6, and 11.1 percent of women in the zoledronate-zoledronate, zoledronate-placebo, and placebo-placebo groups, respectively, had a new morphometric fracture (relative risks, 0.56 and 0.59 for zoledronate-zoledronate and zoledronate- placebo, respectively, versus placebo-placebo).

The relative risks of fragility fracture, any fracture, and major osteoporotic fracture were 0.72, 0.70, and 0.60, respectively, and 0.79, 0.77, and 0.71, respectively, for zoledronate-zoledronate versus placebo-placebo and for zoledronate-placebo versus placebo- placebo.

“Intravenous zoledronate administered once every five years reduced the incidence of morphometric vertebral fractures during a 10-year period,” the authors write.

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