[Remarkable medical advances in rheumatology : may be…].

The development of new drugs is a significant activity in a university hospital that favors access to therapeutic novelties to patients. Rheumatology, whose drug armamentarium was poor in the 1980s, has benefited from the huge progresses of immunology in the 1980-1990s, allowing a therapeutic revolution in whom the academic hospital of Liège (CHU Liège) has been strongly implicated. First protocols with anti-TNF-? monoclonal antibodies have been applied in 1997.

High detection rate of osteoporosis with screening of a general hospitalized population: a 6-year study in 6406 patients in a university hospital setting.

Background: Osteoporosis is a highly prevalent disease identified by Dual Energy X-ray Absorptiometry (DEXA) that can be performed in an ambulatory (out-patient) or hospitalized population. We evaluated the use of baseline in-hospital DEXA screening to identify osteoporosis in ambulatory care and hospitalized patients; we also assessed specific risk factors for osteoporosis among these populations.

Methods: We included a baseline initial DEXA from 6406 consecutive patients at our tertiary referral University Hospital.

Comparison of the proportion of patients potentially treated with an anti-osteoporotic drug using the current criteria of the Belgian national social security and the new suggested FRAX criteria.

To assess the number of anti-osteoporosis treatments that would be reimbursed by the Belgian social security if either FRAX or the current criteria were used to determine access to reimbursement. This is a retrospective study based on data from 1,000 women randomly selected from an outpatient hospital specialized in bone metabolism in Belgium. Proportions of potentially refunded treatments between FRAX and current criteria were compared.

Effect of collagen hydrolysate in articular pain: a 6-month randomized, double-blind, placebo controlled study.

Objective: Evaluation of the efficacy and safety of a food supplement made of collagen hydrolysate 1200 mg/day versus placebo during 6 months, in subjects with joint pain at the lower or upper limbs or at the lumbar spine.

Design: Comparative double-blind randomized multicenter study in parallel groups.

Setting: 200 patients of both genders of at least 50 years old with joint pain assessed as ≥30 mm on a visual analogical scale (VAS).

Strontium ranelate: a new treatment for postmenopausal osteoporosis with a dual mode of action.

In vitro, strontium ranelate increases collagen and noncollagen protein synthesis by mature osteoblast-enriched cells. Its effects on bone formation were confirmed as the drug enhanced preosteoblastic cell replication. In the isolated osteoclast, preincubation of bone slices with strontium ranelate-induced dose-dependent inhibition of the bone-resorbing activity of treated rat osteoclast.