Osteoporosis guidelines

The Position Statement from the International Menopause Society (IMS) in 2004 recommends the use of hormone therapy for the 'avoidance of bone-wasting and fractures'. It also states that 'prevention, not treatment, is the most feasible goal'. In updating the Statement, this paper considers the relevance of Osteoporosis Guidelines. Relevant documents will be of two broad types. These may be consensus statements/position statements that summarize the 'state of the art' for practitioners, based on the work of expert groups, or they may be formal Guidelines generated through formal 'evidence-based' methodology. The former approach is generally used by Societies and can be generated through relatively efficient consensus processes. The latter approach will normally involve extensive work and cost, necessarily becomes very detailed, involving systematic review and technology appraisal and can lead to highly specific recommendations on intervention thresholds. For the revision of the general IMS Position Statement, the specific IMS Paper on Postmenopausal Osteoporosis (2005) must be a key reference document. This provides a description of the international consensus on the management of osteoporosis up to late 2004 and which remains relevant today. Additionally, other consensus statements and systematic guidelines need to be considered. Across these documents providing guidance, the substantial influence of the International Osteoporosis Foundation/National Osteoporosis Foundation Position Paper, defining a 'New approach to the development of assessment guidelines for osteoporosis', can be seen. This flagged the importance of a shift from guidance, tying the diagnostic threshold to the intervention threshold, and instead advised linking the intervention threshold to estimated fracture risk probability. This moves the intervention decision away from a simple bone density threshold to a more complex, but more realistic, threshold estimate, taking into account a range of important clinical risk factors and bone mineral density. This thinking is reflected in the IMS Paper on Postmenopausal Osteoporosis (2005).