Can Fam Physician. 1979 Apr;25:467-72.
Of postmenopausal women, 20-30% will experience symptomatic involutional osteoporosis. Though the cause is still poorly defined, recent information gives the family physician several routes to treat effectively most patients who become symptomatic. Two other responsibilities exist, however: defining occult causes for the porotic process which may be of greater importance than the osteoporosis itself, and attempting to treat patients at risk for future osteoporosis prophylactically. The latter is a task where we have very effective modes of therapy, but we are only just beginning to develop means of defining that populace destined to suffer from future osteoporosis.
在绝经后的女性中，有 20-30%会经历有症状的绝经后骨质疏松症。尽管其病因仍不清楚，但最近的信息为家庭医生提供了几条途径，可以有效地治疗大多数出现症状的患者。然而，还有另外两项责任：确定可能比骨质疏松症本身更为重要的疏松过程的隐匿性原因，以及尝试对有未来骨质疏松症风险的患者进行预防性治疗。后者是一项我们有非常有效的治疗方法的任务，但我们才刚刚开始开发确定未来患有骨质疏松症的人群的方法。
