Bone Abstracts

Inflammatory joint diseases like rheumatoid arthritis (RA), as well as other rheumatic conditions such as ankylosing spondylitis and systemic lupus erythematosus, comprise a heterogeneous group of joint disorders that are all associated with extra-articular side effects, including bone involvement. Disease activity, immobility and treatment with (high dose) glucocorticoids are the main factors that increase the risk of osteoporotic fractures, on top of the background fracture ...

Oftenly, the question arises whether anti-osteoporotic drugs should be prescribed in glucocorticoid-treated premenopausal women. On the one hand, there are strong arguments to prescribe these drugs, when these patients are treated with high dose glucocorticoïds, and suffer from diseases that have a negative effect on bone, for instance SLE.On the other hand, the absolute fracture risk is low, related to their young age, and finally, in women with ch...

Objective: The aim of this study was to gain insight into all the current overall costs (direct medical, direct non-medical and indirect costs) of clinical fractures in osteoporotic patients aged 50 years and older in the Netherlands.Materials and methods: This prospective study was part of a larger study in which the effect of a fracture nurse on diagnosis and subsequent treatment of elderly osteoporotic patients with a recent fracture was assessed. Inc...

Fracture outpatient (FO) clinics aim to identify individuals at high fracture risk. Identification of individuals at high fracture risk has been improved since the introduction of vertebral fracture assessment (VFA). Unfortunately, participation rates in FO clinics are often low.The aim of this study is to i) assess the contributory value of VFA in addition to BMD measurements in identifying individuals with high fracture risk; ii) assess characteristics...

Purpose: Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a rare inflammatory rheumatic disease that has been associated with an increased risk of low bone mineral density (BMD). However, data on risk factors associated with bone loss in SSc are scarce. The objective of this study was to investigate the prevalence of and the risk factors for low BMD in patients with SSc.Methods: Cross-sectional data of 61 patients with SSc were collected. BMD in the lumbar spine, total hip a...

Background: Recently, we showed that treatment with COBRA-light therapy including prednisone with initially 30 mg/day was as effective as the original COBRA scheme, with initially 60 mg/day (Ter Wee, ARD 2015), in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Since high-dose glucocorticoids are associated with bone loss, we investigated the differences in bone mineral density (BMD) after 1 year of treatment in both arms.Objective: To determine whether ther...

Objective: Increase the percentage of elderly fracture patients undergoing a dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) measurement, and investigate why some patients did not respond to invitation to our fracture liaison service (FLS).Materials and methods: In four Dutch hospitals, fracture patients ≥50 years were invited for a DXA measurement and visit to our FLS. Patients who did not respond, were contacted by telephone. In patients diagnosed with os...

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Osteoporosis is common in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Since osteoblasts express receptors for CXCL8 and CCL20, which are produced by inflammatory cells around the inflamed joints in RA, we hypothesized that CXCL8 and CCL20 contribute to osteoporosis in RA by affecting osteoblast proliferation, differentiation, and osteoblast-osteoclast communication.Primary human osteoblasts were cultured±CXCL8 (2–200 pg/ml) and CCL20 (5–500 pg/ml) for 14 d...

Delayed fracture healing is frequently experienced in patients with systemic inflammation such as during rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The reasons for this are diverse, but could also be caused by inflammatory cytokines and/or growth factors in serum from patients with active disease. We hypothesized that serum from patients with active RA contains circulating inflammatory factors that inhibit differentiation of osteochondrogenic precursors.Serum was obtain...