A randomized clinical trial comparing oral alendronate and intravenous pamidronate for the treatment of Paget's disease of bone.

Second and third generation bisphosphonates are the treatment of choice for Paget's disease of bone. These drugs are more effective than calcitonin and etidronate, but there have been no head to head, randomized controlled trials comparing potent bisphosphonates. We conducted a 2-year, randomized, open-label trial comparing oral alendronate and intravenous pamidronate in 72 subjects with Paget's disease.

Major method-specific differences in the measurement of intact parathyroid hormone: studies in patients with and without chronic renal failure.

Background: Following the introduction of two-site immunometric assays for parathyroid hormone (PTH), the expectation of good inter-assay agreement has not been fulfilled. The reasons for this may include differences in standardization as well as fragment recognition between the assays.

Methods: PTH values for healthy individuals, patients with renal failure and patients with normal renal function and elevated parathyroid hormone (hPTH) were compared using two commercial two-site immunochemiluminometric assays (Bayer Magic-lite and DPC Immulite 2000).

A randomized trial comparing hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and HRT plus calcitriol in the treatment of postmenopausal osteoporosis with vertebral fractures: benefit of the combination on total body and hip density.

We report a prospective, randomized, multicenter, open-label 2-year trial of 81 postmenopausal women aged 53-79 years with at least one minimal-trauma vertebral fracture (VF) and low (T-score below - 2) lumbar bone mineral density (BMD). Group HRT received piperazine estrone sulfate (PES) 0.625 - 1.

Impact of the analysis of a bone density reference range on determination of the T-score.

There are uncertainties concerning the optimal threshold value of bone mineral density (BMD) for the diagnosis of osteoporosis using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA). The most widely accepted clinical criteria are based on T- and Z-scores, derived statistically from an age-dependent BMD reference range that includes healthy young adults. This study has compared different analyses of BMD data of healthy, nonfractured, adult white females aged 18-90 years, consisting of 953 studied with DXA in the L1-L4 spine and 1018 measured at the hip.

Bone density changes in Paget's disease 2 years after iv pamidronate: profound, sustained increases in pagetic bone with severity-related loss in forearm nonpagetic cortical bone.

Bone mineral density (BMD) was measured at three sites (forearm, spine, and hip) using dual X-ray and single-photon absorptiometry in 68 patients with Paget's disease before and after treatment with iv pamidronate. Patients were treated according to the severity of their disease; the mild category (Group I, hydroxyproline excretion (Hyp(E)) <5.0 micromol/L GF) received 120 mg, the moderate category (Group II, Hyp(E) 5.