The National Institute for Health Research Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation (EME) Program is financing and supporting a new £1.5 million trial testing a combination of therapies to prevent rapture in patients with brittle bone disease.
The University of Edinburgh’s six years studies including 25 hospitals in the UK and one in the Republic of Ireland, will evaluate a treatment of teriparatide followed zoledronic acid against placebo in 390 people with osteogenesis imperfecta.
The erratic bone condition is initiated by genetic transmutations that lead to abnormalities in collagen, leaving people with exceedingly fragile bones that break easily.
Both teriparatide and zoledronic acid are recognized treatments for the bone-thinning disease osteoporosis but this is the first time they have been tested in combination as therapies for OI.
According to Professor Stuart Ralston, University of Edinburgh’s Centre for Genomic and Experimental Medicine, “This is possibly a game-changing trial since it is the first study that had been explicitly intended to investigate whether any treatment can stop fractures in osteogenesis imperfect. If the results are positive, it could be the best thing in treatment of this rare but devastating state.”
Date: 16 Jan, 2017