Developed by the American
Association of Clinical Endocrinologists
To
reduce the incidence of fractures related to osteoporosis and to achieve the
highest quality of life for patients, AACE -- a non-profit organization comprised
of 3,600 clinical endocrinologists -- has updated its guidelines for optimal
osteoporosis care.
The 2001 AACE Medical Guidelines for Clinical Practice for the Prevention and Management of Postmenopausal Osteoporosis are intended to simplify medical decision-making and help physicians and their patients make good decisions about skeletal health and postmenopausal osteoporosis.
The specific goals of these guidelines are to reduce the incidence of fractures related to osteoporosis and to achieve the highest quality of life for individual patients by using the most effective and efficient methods of diagnosis and management.
Developed by National
Institutes of Health (NIH) Consensus Development Panel
Nutrition,
exercise, and medicines can play important roles in the prevention and treatment
of osteoporosis, according to an independent, non-Government consensus panel
convened by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in March 2000.
The panel was charged with addressing the following five questions:
The panel's recommendations for future research include identifying and intervening in disorders that can impede the achievement of peak bone mass in children of ethnic diversity; improving diagnosis and treatment of secondary causes of osteoporosis, such as that resulting from the use of glucocorticoids (for example, prednisone); collecting data necessary to establish testing guidelines for osteoporosis; developing quality-of-life measurement tools that incorporate gender, age and race/ethnicity; conducting randomized clinical trials of combination therapies to prevent or treat osteoporosis; and developing a paradigm for the management of fractures.
National Osteoporosis Foundation (NOF) Guidelines 1998
In November of 1998, NOF released the Physician's Guide to Prevention and Treatment of Osteoporosis. The Physician's Guide, developed to help health care professionals make decisions about patient care, is comprehensive and evidence-based. Its recommendations are based on scientific evidence regarding effective prevention, diagnostic, and treatment methods, published in a report developed in partnership with leading national medical specialty societies.
The 2003 updated NOF Guideline states that, “the guide primarily addresses postmenopausal white women. It does not address men, premenopausal women, or women of other races, since there are insufficient data available to formulate comparable recommendations for these populations. This does not imply that osteoporosis affects only postmenopausal white women. Until we have enough data to make specific recommendations for other populations, the risk factors currently identified for white women should be used for others on an individual basis to determine the need for bone density testing and treatment. Neither does the guide address secondary causes of osteoporosis, which should be excluded by clinical evaluation. Furthermore, all people should follow the universal recommendations for prevention in this guide”.
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