Key clinical point: Treatment with bazedoxifene for 48 weeks significantly increased bone mineral density (BMD) of L-spine and decreased bone turnover markers in postmenopausal women with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) receiving low-dose glucocorticoids.
Major finding: Treatment with bazedoxifene significantly increased L-spine BMD (0.015 g/cm 2; P = .007), whereas the change in the control group was not significant (0.002 g/cm 2; P = .694). At 24 weeks, all bone turnover biomarkers decreased significantly with bazedoxifene, which persisted to 48 weeks (all P less than .01), whereas recovery observed in the control group was not significant.
Study details: The data come from an open-label study involving 114 postmenopausal women with osteopenia who had been receiving low-dose glucocorticoids for RA and were randomly assigned to either daily bazedoxifene (20 mg/day) with calcium and vitamin D or only calcium and vitamin D (control group).
Disclosures: The study was supported by a research grant from Pfizer Pharmaceuticals Korea Ltd. YK Sung reported receiving research grants from Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eisai, Pfizer, and JW Pharmaceutical.
Source: Cho SK et al. Arthritis Res Ther. 2021 Jul 2. doi: 10.1186/s13075-021-02564-1 .