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A population-based 2-year follow-up study on the relationship between bisphosphonates and the risk of stroke
Osteoporosis International, 02/06/2012
Clinical Article
Kang JH et al. – Patients who received bisphosphonate therapy were associated with a lower risk of stroke during a 2-year follow-up period.
Methods- Identified 2,148 patients who received bisphosphonate therapy for osteoporotic fractures
- Randomly extracted 6,444 subjects with vertebral or hip fractures as comparison group matched with study group on age, sex, and year of index date
- Each patient was individually tracked for 2 years to identify those who suffered a stroke
- Stratified Cox proportional hazards regressions were performed to assess the effect of bisphosphonate treatment on the risk of stroke
- Found that 184 (8.6%) patients who received bisphosphonate therapy and 696 (10.8%) comparison patients suffered a stroke during follow-up period
- After adjusting for demographic variables and medical co-morbidities, stratified Cox proportional hazards regressions stratified by propensity score revealed that patients who received bisphosphonate therapy were less likely to suffer a stroke than comparison patients (HR equals 0.79; 95% CI equals 0.66–0.99)
- Adjusted HR for subarachnoid/intra-cerebral hemorrhage for patients who received bisphosphonate therapy was only 0.53 times (95% CI equals 0.33–0.92) that of comparison patients, and hazard of having an ischemic stroke during the 2-year follow-up period was 0.81 times that of comparison patients (95% CI equals 0.65–0.96)
