Osteoporosis drugs – cosmetic surgery for the bones?

One of the most popular drugs prescribed these days are the bisphosphonates. You may know them as Fosamax (alendronate) or Actonel (risendronate). They have been pitched as the drug that everyone with osteoporosis should take, and if you are a female over 50, you may have been advised to get your bone density measured, in case you need to take these drugs. Worldwide sales of Fosamax alone hit the $3 billion mark before it went off patent in 2008. We know the drugs increase bone density, but that is just cosmetic surgery for the bones. How much of that translates into fracture prevention? And how many people would want to take this drug if they were given an accurate description of the risks and benefits?

The magical “floating” kidney

I started writing this up as a “Lesson from History”, because floating kidney (or “nephroptosis”) was big in the late 19^th century, and I thought that the condition was no longer taken seriously. In researching this however, I found that surgery for this condition is having a resurgence thanks to laparoscopic (keyhole) surgery. To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Book review: The Role of Medicine: Dream, Mirage or Nemesis?

Title: The Role of Medicine: Dream, Mirage or Nemesis? (1979)

Author: Thomas McKeown

Publisher: Basil Blackwell, Oxford

In a book that is often grouped with Effectiveness and Efficiency (Cochrane) and Limits to Medicine (Illich), Dr McKeown attempts to calculate the role of medicine in the improvement in health seen over the preceding centuries. He also points out the current problems with medicine (in the 1970s, anyway) and makes suggestions for the future of medical practice, education and research.  Fortunately, many of his suggestions have been realised, but unfortunately, the contribution of medicine to the continuing improvement in health remains overestimated.