A prospective comparative study of intravenous alendronate and ibandronate for the treatment of osteoporosis.

RATIONALE

Few comparative studies have evaluated the differences between intravenous alendronate (ALN) and ibandronate (IBN) in patients with osteoporosis. This study was to compare the effects of these 2 drugs on bone mineral density (BMD), bone metabolic markers, and adverse events in patients with osteoporosis.

PATIENT CONCERNS

Seventy-eight subjects were assigned to the ALN group and 66 to the IBN group.

DIAGNOSES

The diagnosis of osteoporosis was based on BMD values of the femoral neck or lumbar spine less than -2.5 SD below the reference values.

INTERVENTIONS

This study was designed as a 52-weeks, prospective, non-randomized study involving a parallel-group comparison between intravenous ALN and intravenous IBN in elderly women with osteoporosis.

OUTCOMES

The non-switched-IBN subgroup showed significant decrease in serum collagen type I cross-linked telopeptide (NTX) at 6 and 12 months compared with baseline, and the decrease in NTX were significantly greater in the non-switched-IBN subgroup than in the non-swithed-ALN subgroup. BMD in the lumbar spine in the non-switched-IBN subgroup showed a significant increase at 12 months and the increase in BMD were significantly larger than in the non-switched-ALN subgroup.

LESSONS

Intravenou IBN might result in a significantly greater increase of BMD and decrease in NTX, but it had a higher incidence of adverse drug reactions than ALN.