Compound could help seniors survive hip fractures

“We?ve now found a way that we believe will stop this profound loss of bone following a hip fracture,” said Jay Magaziner, one of the principal investigators on the study and professor in Epidemeology and Preventative Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

The study found that injecting a compound called zoledronic acid once a year, combined with calcium and vitamin D supplements, reduced the risk of new fractures by 35 percent, compared to only 14 percent in the placebo group, which also took calcium and vitamin D supplements.

During the study, 9.6 percent of the participants on zoledronic acid versus 13.3 percent on placebo died, translating into a 28 percent reduction of all causes of death, according to the study.

Zoledronic acid prevents the loss of calcium, Magaziner said. “What normally happens after a hip fracture … is a typical woman loses somewhere around 5 percent of their bone density within a year.”

The drug was injected within 90 days after the surgical repair of a hip fracture and every 12 months afterward, according to the study published Monday in the New England Journal of Medicine Web site.

Researchers found bone density also increased on the drug, by more than 5 percent over three years, compared to declines of almost 1 percent on the placebo.

Side-effects included some instances of soreness in the muscle-surrounding joints.

Originally developed by Novartis Oncology to treat high levels of calcium in the blood caused by certain types of cancer, zoledronic acid is also used during chemotherapy to treat bone damage caused by cancer.

Zoledronic acid is in a class of medications called bisphosphonates that work slow bone breakdown by decreasing the amount of calcium released from the bones into the blood, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Novartis will now take this study to the Food and Drug Administration for review before it can be approved for use in hip-fracture patients.

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