Recently, it has been demonstrated that serum osteocalcin, a marker of osteoblast activity, is depressed in premenopausal adult women given 1 week of high-dose inhalational beclomethasone and not in those given a lower dose. The lack of consistent correlation of these risk factors with all four skeletal regions studied may be due to the small sample size.
The results of our study demonstrate that longterm use of inhalational steroids for the treatment of asthma is associated with decreased BMD at several sites comprised predominantly of trabecular bone, which is compatible with the known effect of corticosteroids on bone. Buy antibiotics add comment Relevant risk factors identified in this study include being female, receiving a higher average daily inhaled steroid dose, and a low BMI. The clinical significance of this decrease is not apparent from the present study, but there is good evidence that bone mass in the spine and proximal femur as measured by bone density, correlates with risks of vertebral and hip fractures, respectively.
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