[Initial treatment trends in patient with osteoporosis: use of antiresorptive agents and pharmacologic supplements (calcium and vitamin D) in clinical practice]

Objective: To describe the percentage of prescription of pharmacologic supplements in patients starting antiresorptive treatment (ART) for osteoporosis by specialists.

Design: Cross-sectional, naturalistic, multicenter study with retrospective data collection.

Patients and methods: 88 Spanish primary care (PC) physicians participated as well as those from Bone Metabolism Unit / Rheumatology and Gynecology units. Patients were females with osteoporosis who started ART in the 12 to 36 months prior to the visit.

Main outcomes: General clinical variables and those related to osteoporosis treatment (both ART and pharmacologic supplements) and an opinion survey on pharmacologic supplements.

Results: 480 patients were included. Mean age (SD) was 65.8 (9.2) years. Pharmacologic supplements were prescribed in 69.6% of patients and were more frequent in patients treated in Bone Metabolism/Rheumatology Units (89.1%) than patients treated by PC (60.3%) and Gynecology (55.6%). In the physician survey, 72% of the Bone Metabolism / Rheumatology Unit physicians responded that the Vitamin D supplements were necessary for treatment of osteoporosis vs. 38.5% of PC physicians (p=0.058).

Conclusions: The use of pharmacologic supplements in the onset of treatment with ART represents more than 60% of the sample, although differences were seen between specialists, with a greater percentage of patients with supplements in the Bone Metabolism/Rheumatology Units than in PC and Gynecology, despite guidelines primarily recommend the use of pharmacologic supplements in these patients.