UK's NICE issues final guidance on osteoporosis prevention

The National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), which decides which drugs should be provided in the UK's National Health Service (apart from in Scotland), has published final guidance on therapies for the prevention of osteoporotic fractures in post-menopausal women. The National Osteoporosis Society called for "a completely fresh appraisal of osteoporosis treatments." The charity believes the NICE's guidance is "complex, inflexible and unethical." In a statement, the NOS said: "patients will have to get significantly worse before their [general practitioner] can give them the treatment they need, which is not only bad for patients, but also puts doctors in an impossible position."

The NICE's final guidance is identical to its earlier proposal (Marketletter July 14), the NOS claims. A generic drug, alendronate, is recommended as the primary and second-line therapy, despite being unsuitable for one in four people. The group warns that "patients will have to get considerably worse, with their bone density dropping to a dangerously low level before they are eligible for alternative treatment." More than 80,000 people have died in the six years that the NOS has been pressing for better preventative treatments, as a consequence of a hip fracture.