Abaloparatide Effective In Ignored Population: Men With Osteoporosis

Osteoporosis is commonly known as a "silent disease" because it progresses without symptoms until afracture occurs. It develops less often in men than in women because men have larger skeletons, their bone loss starts later and progresses more slowly, and they have no period of rapid hormonal change and bone loss.

Abaloparatide was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2017 for the treatment of postmenopausal women at high risk for fracture due to a history of osteoporotic fracture or multiple fracture risk factors, or who havent responded to or are intolerant of other osteoporosis therapies.

However, a new data shows that the anabolic osteoporosis treatment abaloparatideworks in men as well as women,. Findings are from a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, phase 3 study that was presented at the American Association of Clinical Endocrinology (AACE) Annual Meeting 2022. Abaloparatide, a subcutaneously administered parathyroid-hormone-related protein (PTHrP) analog, resulted in significant increases in bone mineral density by 12 months at the lumbar spine, total hip, and femoral neck compared with placebo in men with osteoporosis, with no significant adverse effects.

The approval of abaloparatide in women was based on the phase 3, 18-week ACTIVE trial of more than 2000 high-risk women, in whom abaloparatide was associated with an 86% reduction in vertebral fracture incidence compared with placebo, and also significantly greater reductions in nonvertebral fractures.

Hence, it was observed that osteoporosis is underdiagnosed in men and the Abaloparatide is another option for this group of ignored population.