Health care budgets are limited and, therefore, new therapies are increasingly required to demonstrate both clinical and economic benefits. In the case of PMO, demographic trends indicate that in the coming years a larger proportion of the population will be at risk of PMO because of advancing age, thereby placing an increased burden on MCOs [...]

Over the three-year period, risedronate produced greater reductions in fractures compared to alendronate. Patients treated with risedronate experienced 23 hip and 111 vertebral fractures (134 total fractures) per 1,000 patients (Table 3). In contrast, a total of 28 hip fractures and 115 vertebral fractures per 1,000 patients (for a total of 143 fractures) were experienced [...]

Vertebral Fracture
As with hip fracture, vertebral fracture rates for the general population were adjusted to reflect a PMO population. Efficacy values (in terms of relative risk of fracture) of 0.51 and 0.53 were used for patients treated with risedronate tablet or alendronate, respectively. These efficacy rates were obtained from randomized clinical trials with similar patient [...]

Patient Population
Our base case analysis consisted of a hypothetical cohort of 65-year-old-women with low bone mineral density (BMD) (i.e., BMD of 2.5 or more standard deviations [SD] below the young adult mean) and a prevalent vertebral fracture. We assume that 21% of 65-to 69- year-olds fall into this study population.

INTRODUCTION
Postmenopausal osteoporosis (PMO) is characterized by reduced bone mass leading to an increased risk of fracture. The prevalence of PMO increases with age from approximately 6% at age 50 to over 50% above age 80. The incidence of osteoporotic fractures follows a similar pattern, with wrist fractures peaking at approximately age 70, and vertebral and [...]

Over the last two decades, the ability to diagnose and treat osteoporosis has dramatically improved. The advances in treatment of osteoporosis have unfortunately been underutilized in non-caucasian populations. Researchers have highlighted that the current guidelines for screening and treatment of osteoporosis medication are primarily based on data obtained from studies of postmenopausal Caucasian women, as [...]

Preventive Medicine and Screening
The demographics of the patients included in the chart review are shown in Table 1. The mean age of the group was 69.6 years (range 53-94). Of the 252 women, only 11.5% had documentation of prior central bone densitometry (DEXA). Nearly 39% of the women were counseled about calcium and/or vitamin-D intake. [...]