Teriparatide improves early callus formation in distal radial fractures

摘要

Background Teriparatide (parathyreoid hormone; PTH 1-34) increases skeletal mass in humans and improves fracture healing in animals. A recent randomized multicenter trial of nonoperated distal radial fractures showed a moderate shortening of the time to restoration of cortical continuity by treatment with 20 μg (low-dose) teriparatide per day, but not with 40 μg (high-dose). As radiographic cortical continuity appears late in the healing process, perhaps too late for clinical relevance, we studied the qualitative appearance of the callus 5 weeks after fracture.Methods One third of the patients of the international trial were treated at Link?ping University Hospital. The multicenter trial did not evaluate early callus formation. We therefore made a blinded qualitative scoring of the callus at 5 weeks in our 27 patients. Callus formation was arbitrarily classified as rich, intermediate, or poor.Results 9 patients were classified as rich (none had received placebo, 3 low-dose teriparatide, and 6 high-dose te...