[Osteogenesis imperfecta and calcitonin. Considerations on 10 years of clinical experimentation]

Salmon and porcine calcitonin has been used in the drug treatment of Osteogenesis Imperfecta for ten years. The evaluation of its therapeutic efficacy is complex and inaccurate because of difficulty in clinical and pathogenetic classification of the disease and impossibility to standardize and evaluate the patients. Calcitonin therapy showed no capacity to modify the degree of osteoporosis and the incidence of pathological fracture and bone deformities, because it does not affect the underlying biochemical defect. Calcitonin may be useful only in selected patients and in addition to physiotherapeutic, orthopaedic and surgical measures.