Study of Adverse Effect Profile of Parenteral Zoledronic Acid in Female Patients with Osteoporosis.

BACKGROUND

Osteoporosis is still a under recognized entity in the population. Osteoporosis-related fractures can be prevented if people at risk can be screened, diagnosed and treated early. Bisphosphonates remain the mainstay of osteoporosis treatment as they have multimodal action. Oral bisphosphonate therapy has, significant gastrointestinal side effects leading to noncompliance. Of late parenteral Zoledronic Acid is being used as once or twice yearly infusion for the treatment of osteoporosis.

OBJECTIVE

Our article studies the side effect profile and tolerability of parenteral Zoledronic Acid, one of the most potent bisphosphonate used in clinical practice in patients with osteoporosis.

METHODS

This study was done in KMC hospitals where 49 patients diagnosed with osteoporosis were included for the study. After obtaining a written informed consent each patient received one infusion of 5 mg Zoledronic Acid as per standard treatment protocol. Patient was monitored for clinical improvement and development of any adverse effects.

CONCLUSIONS

In our study all subjects reported significant pain relief after infusion of Zoledronic Acid. Zoledronic Acid had very few serious adverse effects that can be prevented through pre-infusion screening, maintaining good hydration and careful patient monitoring. In our population the patients only experienced mild symptoms of pyrexia, arthralgia myalgia and influenza like symptoms which resolved with symptomatic treatment.