New Treatment Discovered For Children With Brittle Bones

Researchers have discovered a new treatment for children who suffer from brittle bone disease.

This new treatment has been developed by the researchers at the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Children's Hospital. The treatment cures children who suffer from fragile bone disease called Osteogenesis Imperfecta.

Osteogenesis Imperfecta (OI) is also known as brittle bone disease and is a congenital disorder.  People with this condition are born with defective connective tissue due to the deficiency of Type-I collagen. There are eight types of OI and the symptoms of this condition vary from person to person. In the U.S. the occurrence of OI is estimated to be 1 per 20,000 live births. 20,000 to 50,000 people are affected by OI in the U.S.

Until now there was no cure for this condition. But this study demonstrates that the use of medicine 'risedronate' not only reduces the risk of fractures in kids with brittle bones but also acts rapidly. A test on children of ages 4-15 showed that oral risedronate lowered the risk of first and recurrent fractures.  After six weeks of the treatment the curves for fracture risk started to come down.

"We wanted to show that the use of risedronate could significantly impact on children's lives by reducing fracture rates - and it did. The fact that this medicine can be given by mouth at home (other similar medicines are given by a drip in hospital) makes it family-friendly," Nick Bishop, Professor of Paediatric Bone Disease at the University of Sheffield, said in a press release.

The study was published in The Lancet.