[Guidelines for clinical use of drugs for involutional osteoporosis]

Guidelines for clinical use of drugs for involutional osteoporosis will be released soon in Japan. Seven different types of drugs for osteoporosis are in market for clinical use in Japan. Those includes calcium, estrogens, anabolic steroids, calcitonins, active vitamin D3, ipriflavon, and etidronate. The guidelines recommend to clarify the risk factors in each patient before to start administration of drug. Patients with osteopenia are basically recommended to be followed without any drug treatment, but, patients with osteoporosis are generally recommended to be treated with drug after evaluation of risk factors. After menopause, inhibitors of bone resorption would be recommended as a first choice drug. For monitoring effects of treatment, bone mass measurement is so far the first choice, but bone metabolic markers would be used as well.