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Serum N‐terminal osteocalcin is a good indicator for estimating responders to hormone replacement therapy in postmenopausal women
Author(s) -
Chen JuiTung,
Hosoda Kenji,
Hasumi Katsuhiko,
Ogata Etsuro,
Shiraki Masataka
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
journal of bone and mineral research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.882
H-Index - 241
eISSN - 1523-4681
pISSN - 0884-0431
DOI - 10.1002/jbmr.5650111123
Subject(s) - osteocalcin , medicine , hormone replacement therapy (female to male) , postmenopausal women , hormone therapy , endocrinology , oncology , alkaline phosphatase , biology , testosterone (patch) , cancer , biochemistry , breast cancer , enzyme
To estimate the response to hormone replacement therapy (HRT) by bone metabolic markers, 36 patients with postmenopausal osteoporosis or osteopenia were studied to assess the correlation between percent baseline changes in lumbar bone mineral density (BMD) after 12 months and those in various bone metabolic markers after 3, 6, and 12 months of HRT. All the patients were treated with 0.625 mg of conjugated estrogen and 2.5 mg of medroxyprogesterone per day and continued for 12 months. BMD was significantly increased up to 4.19 ± 0.87% after 6 months and 4.93 ± 1.27% after 12 months of HRT ( p = 0.0001 by analysis of variance). In accordance with this, changes in the levels of osteocalcin ( p = 0.041), alkaline phosphatase ( p = 0.0001), N‐terminal osteocalcin ( p = 0.0001), urinary excretion of pyridinoline/Cr ( p = 0.0001), and deoxypyridinoline/Cr ( p = 0.0001) were significantly decreased, respectively. Among these bone metabolic markers, only the change in the serum N‐terminal osteocalcin at 3 months ( r = 0.557, p = 0.0022), at 6 months ( r = 0.470, p = 0.0184), and at 12 months ( r = 0.545, p = 0.0061) significantly correlated with the change in BMD 12 months after HRT. The elution profiles of immunoreactive osteocalcin‐related molecules in serum fractionated by reverse‐phase high performance liquid chromatography revealed that the N‐terminal fragment as well as the intact osteocalcin molecule decreased after 3 months of HRT. These results demonstrate that N‐terminal osteocalcin is a suitable predictor for estimating good responders to HRT in postmenopausal women. (J Bone Miner Res 1996;11:1784–1792)