
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, August 19, 1995                   TAG: 9508210057
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                 LENGTH: Short

SPRAY OK FOR BRITTLE BONES

The Food and Drug Administration has approved an easier way for some women with crippling osteoporosis to take their medicine.

Osteoporosis afflicts 25 million Americans, most of them postmenopausal women. It causes the bones to become brittle and break easily, resulting in 1.5 million fractures and 50,000 deaths a year.

The best treatment is the hormone estrogen, but many women refuse to take it because of side effects, including a possible risk of certain cancers. For those women, the only alternative has been injections of another hormone, calcitonin derived from salmon.

The FDA on Friday approved a version of that calcitonin in an easier-to-use nasal spray, called Miacalcin.

It must be taken with adequate amounts of calcium and vitamin D to work properly, manufacturer Sandoz Pharmaceutical Corp. said.

Clinical trials show daily use of the nasal spray increased the bone mass of patients' spines. But the trials did not show increased bone in the hip, a major spot for osteoporosis fractures, the FDA cautioned.

A more groundbreaking drug, Merck & Co.'s Fosamax, is poised to become the nation's first nonhormonal treatment for osteoporosis, preventing bone loss by binding to the cells that attack bone.

by CNB