Salmon Calcitonin and the Treatment of Acute Osteoporosis

There are many different treatment options for osteoporosis available to physicians. Most of these are designed to prevent and treat osteoporosis by inhibiting bone resorption and/or increasing bone formation. One group of patients with very specific needs is those with vertebral compression fractures especially in those whom the most commonly used treatment, bisphosphonate, is not well tolerated. Under these circumstances salmon calcitonin, a treatment that has known efficacy in reducing further vertebral fracture, an analgesic effect, and is known to be safe and well tolerated in older individuals, could be the answer.Salmon calcitonin is the most widely used of the calcitonins effective in humans. It has 40 times the affinity for osteoclasts as human calcitonin and is very effective at inhibiting bone resorption.1,2