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The UK’s National Library for Health has published on its website anassessment of newspaper reports on the use of zoledronic acid(Aclasta®) in reducing risk of spinal and hip fractures due toosteoporosis in postmenopausal women.
According to the assessment of UK newspaper coverage, part of the NLH’s “Hitting the Headlines” service, the Daily Mail, The Daily Telegraph and The Timesreported that annual treatment with Aclasta, administered by infusion,cut the risk of spinal fractures by 70% and hip fractures by 41%, butthe drug was not yet licensed in the UK. The reports were based onfindings from a trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Theassessment’s authors stated that: “The newspapers were generallyaccurate in their reports of the trial. However, suggestions that womenreceiving an annual treatment are less likely to suffer fractures thanthose taking daily or weekly pills, as reported by the The Daily Telegraph,are not supported by this study. This study compared Alcasta withplacebo and as such, a direct comparison with other treatments cannotbe made without head-to-head studies.”
National Electronic Library for Medicines 9/5/2007
