[Treatment of osteoporosis according to the "European Guidance 2008". Fracture-oriented--economical--cost-effective]

Osteoporosis is one of the ten most important and widespread global diseases. In Germany alone the costs of osteoporosis run into billions of Euros. However, during the past 15 years great progress has been made both in diagnosis and in the development of new medications. Osteoporosis is now taken very seriously and recognized as a national and global disorder which is now both preventable and treatable. Nevertheless, at a practical level, both in Europe and especially in Germany, osteoporosis remains an underdiagnosed and undertreated disease. In Germany, only about 10-15% of patients with manifest osteoporosis are properly treated. The consequences of such inadequate care are high additional costs-not to mention the unnecessary suffering of the patients involved. However, in support of national guidelines, a new edition of the "European Position Paper for the Diagnosis and Management of Osteoporosis" provides the doctors who treat patients with osteoporosis with additional information and therefore more confidence. In this paper several aspects are emphasized: improvements in diagnostic evaluation, assessment of the efficacy of fracture-oriented medications, and cost-effectiveness of the treatment of patients with osteoporosis.