Researchers Find Tenofovir Increases Hip Bone Loss in Older Patients

— Christine M. Kukka, Project Manager, HBV Advocate

Hepatitis B patients treated with the front-runner antiviral tenofovir (Viread) run a risk of reduced bone mass in their hip area, according to a recent report in the August issue of the Journal of Infectious Diseases. The risk of weaker hip bones resulting from tenofovir treatment is more pronounced in older patients who smoke, are thinner with lower body mass, and have advanced liver disease.

Loss of bone mineral density (bone mass) has been documented in HIV-infected patients treated with tenofovir long-term. British researchers decided to monitor 122 tenofovir-treated hepatitis B patients to see if they also lost bone mass, and compare them to a control group of 48 untreated-patients.
Both the control group and treated patients were scanned by X-rays to measure bone mass. Tenofovir-treated patients had reduced bone mineral density, but it was limited to the hip area, researchers noted. "Age and advanced liver disease are additional contributing (risk) factors, underlining the importance of multifactorial fracture risk assessment," they wrote, recommending that doctors perform bone density tests when starting patients on tenofovir in order to identify those at risk of hip injuries.

Source: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25156561

http://www.hbvadvocate.org/news/HBJ11.9.htm

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