Saving Your Bones, Hard Choices. Osteoporosis Drugs Prevent Fractures, but Patients Worry About Side Effects
September 14, 2009 10:41 pm Tags: Bisphosphonates, Dental Clearance, Fosamax, Merck, ONJ, Osteonecrosis of the Jaw, Osteoporosis, Standard of CareCategorised in: Dr. Dorfman on WSJ.com
This post was written by Dr. Jeffrey Dorfman
“We often advise patients who need extensive, invasive dental work to get that done first, then start the drugs and the issue disappears,” says Ian Reid, a professor at the University of Auckland in New Zealand who has written on biosphosphonate safety.” Quoted from the WSJ article.
It could be argued that a physician who intends to prescribe bisphosphonates for a patient should obtain dental clearance from a dentist in advance of such treatment and that to not do so would be operating outside the standard of care in 2009.
Professor Jeffrey Dorfman
The Center for Special Dentistry
New York City