[Effect of drugs for osteoporosis on cardiovascular diseases and effect of cardio vascular drugs on osteoporosis].

Osteoporosis and cardiovascular diseases are epidemiologically associated. Calcification phenomena of atherosclerotic plaque involve cytokines and growth factors also involved in bone remodeling. Drugs given for either of these two conditions could act on these mechanisms.

Osteoporosis and ischemic cardiovascular disease.

Osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease were long viewed as independent of each other. However, numerous epidemiological studies, which are discussed in the first part of this review, have provided incontrovertible evidence of a link. Thus, the risk of coronary artery disease and stroke is higher in patients with a history of osteoporotic fracture or low bone mineral density than in non-osteoporotic patients.

Trabecular Bone Score: Where are we now?

The Trabecular Bone Score is a rather new index obtained at the lumbar spine at the same time as a real bone mineral density. It was developed to reflect bone microarchitecture. It was proposed to be easily used in everyday practice as a surrogate of bone strength.

Usefulness of bone density measurement in fallers.

The objective of this systematic literature review is to discuss the latest French recommendation issued in 2012 that a fall within the past year should lead to bone mineral density (BMD) measurement using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA). This recommendation rests on four facts. First, osteoporosis and fall risk are the two leading risk factors for nonvertebral fractures in postmenopausal women.

Male osteoporosis: diagnosis and fracture risk evaluation.

Male osteoporosis is challenging to diagnose and to treat. Underestimation of the risk of male osteoporosis, the combined presence of several interwoven causative factors in many patients, and uncertainty regarding the absorptiometry cutoffs associated with fractures are major obstacles to the diagnosis of male osteoporosis and to the identification of men at risk for fractures. The lifetime risk of osteoporotic fracture is estimated at 15% among men older than 50 years.

Devising global strategies for fracture-risk evaluation.

Fracture prevention is the goal of osteoporosis treatment. Bone mineral density (BMD) has been the main criterion for deciding whether to initiate treatment, which is usually recommended when the BMD is less than -2.5 SDs from the mean in young women.

[François Calot's concepts about the treatment of osteoarticular tuberculosis].

François Calot proposed to cure the articular tuberculosis by punctures of the tuberculosis abscess and by immobilisation of the joint. He succeeded in many cases which had not to undergo surgery and his method was recognized as the best one till the arrival of the antibiotic (streptomycine) in 1948 which allowed to carry out surgery in the tuberculosis of bones and joints.

Study of serum factors potentially involved in the pathogenesis of heterotopic bone formation after severe brain injury.

Objective: To look for serum factors detectable early after head injury and predictive of heterotopic bone formation.

Patients And Methods: In this prospective study of a homogeneous population of 31 men with severe brain injury, blood samples were obtained 3 months after the accident, and levels of serum factors influenced by bone metabolism were compared between patients with and without heterotopic bone formation. As extensive fractures can influence serum factors, the patients without heterotopic bone formation were divided into two groups based on whether they had major fractures.