JEDDAH, 26 April — Osteoporosis, a disease that makes bones fragile, has as yet no complete cure, although latest developments in its treatment can offer considerable relief to patients, according to two leading Italian professors who were recently in the city.
“Today, there are various medicines that can improve the condition of patients suffering from osteoporosis. Physiotherapy certainly plays an important part,” Prof. Francesco Priolo, chief of the department of radiology at the Catholic University of Rome, said in an interview with Arab News.
“There are different causes of osteoporosis. The most common cause is aging. In the case of women especially it is menopause, probably due to a drop in hormones. So the earlier it is diagnosed, the better it is for providing relief. The condition can be improved but there is no complete cure for it,” Priolo said.
The most susceptible bones for fracture in people affected by osteoporosis are bones of the thigh and the forearm usually just above the wrist joint and the vertebral column. The fracture of vertebrae in the people affected by osteoporosis may cause kyphotic deformity and decrease in height.
According to Dr. Priolo, there are different causes of osteoporosis. They include old age, menopause and decrease of the estrogen level, long-term medications, smoking, alcohol intake, deficiency of calcium in food, family history, loss of body weight and weak build, and lack of exercise and less exposure to sunlight.
Among the symptoms of the disease are recurrent continuous back pain, bone ache in different parts of the body, fracture of the vertebrae, neck or wrist joint, and kyphotic deformity of the vertebral column resulting in gradual decrease in the height of patients suffering from osteoporosis.
Some diseases accompanied by osteoporosis are chronic renal diseases, chronic liver diseases, rheumatoid disease, diabetes mellitus, hyperthyroidism, Mediterranean Sea anemia, vitamin B 12 deficiency, leukemia and lymphosarcoma, hemophilia, gastrectomy, malnutrition and malabsorption, deficient sex hormones and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
DXA is the most recent apparatus, which can diagnose early osteoporosis. Diagnosis does not take more than 10 minutes with very minimal X-ray dose (less than 20:1 of the X-ray dose necessary to get chest X-ray film). The procedure is not painful at all. The apparatus examines the vertebrae, neck femur and wrist joint as well as the density of bones all over the body and detects their fat content for assessment of diet control. Also, the apparatus can detect bone density around the artificial hip joint to assess healing of bones with the artificial joint.
Prophylactic treatment of osteoporosis includes avoiding risk factors.
These can be avoiding smoking, too many cups of coffee, sitting down for a long time, etc. Regular exercise, sunlight exposure and intake of food containing suitable calcium content are among the positive factors.
In addition to calcium and vitamin D, the American FDA approved some effective medications prescribed by the treating physician.
Priolo said that it was a health problem whose management was expensive. “Workers afflicted with this problem can lose workdays,” he said. The good thing, he added, is that “many drugs can treat and improve the condition of patients.”
Emphasizing that imaging is essential for diagnosis of the problem, he said the earlier it is diagnosed the better it is for providing relief. “Of course, you can improve the condition but there is no complete cure for it as yet.”
Palombi said a new device called “The Navigator” was being successfully used in knee, hip or shoulder replacements with precision thanks to its three-dimension imaging capability.
“The hip and knee replacement surgery is today assisted by the new computerized device that can guide the surgeon’s instruments with micrometric precision in cutting the bone in order to perform a perfect remodeling of femur, tibia and patella to receive the prosthesis,” he said.
