Efficacy of intravenous zoledronic acid in the prevention and treatment of osteoporosis: A meta-analysis

Objective: To compare the effect of zoledronic acid in treatment and prevention of osteoporosis with placebo. Methods: Random control trials regarding zoledronic acid in treatment of osteoporosis were retrieved by selecting Medline, EMbase and Pubmed databases till April 2012. The RevMan software was used for all of the statistical analysis. Results: A total of 9 trials were included in this meta-analysis. The pooled effect showed that zoledronic acid could increase the bone mineral density by 2.98 times compared with placebo, and reduce the rate of fracture in patients by 32%. The results should the zoledronic acid intervention had significantly less serious adverse events than controls, and the odds ratio was 0.81 (0.760.87). The longer term intervention, more than 12 months intervention, could gain a better prevention effect for osteoporosis (OR, 95% CI for BMD was 3.35, 2.773.92; for fracture was 0.67, 0.540.82). Conclusions: This present study shows that zoledronic acid could be effective approach in the prevention of osteoporosis, and could increase the bone mineral density and reduce the risk of facture.