A high rate of musculoskeletal disorders occurred in patients treated with ZOL. Patients treated with ZOL had a statistically significant higher

risk of arthralgia and bone pain than patients without ZOL treatment. These adverse effects bring anxiety to patients and may threaten patients’ life quality in some conditions. These adverse effects generally resolve buy AZD2281 within 48 hours and respond well to nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs [33]. Of these patients, some suffered serious musculoskeletal disorders from ZOL treatment, which exist longer and respond worse to anti-inflammatory drugs. Sometimes, serious musculoskeletal disorders cause treatment withdrawal. Although most musculoskeletal disorders will disappear spontaneously, we should take more attentions to patients treated with ZOL. The dose, frequency, and speed of infusion are all important determinants of these adverse effects [33]. When patients with high risk of osteoporosis suffered serious musculoskeletal disorders from ZOL, the risk-reducing measures should be considered. These measures included reducing the dose, slowing the infusion rate and prolonging the interval between infusions. When the patients can not tolerate these adverse effects, other oral bisphosphonates should be considered [33]. When ZOL was administrated to patients with low

risk of osteoporosis, little benefit but additional musculoskeletal disorders would be brought to these patients. Three randomized clinical trials [12, 18, 19] were conducted to compare upfront this website ZOL with delayed ZOL for prevention of bone loss in postmenopausal women. These studies suggested that upfront ZOL was more effective in preserving bone mineral density than delayed ZOL, but no significant difference in fracture rate was observed. The UK Expert Group [20] suggested that

patients with low risk of osteoporosis did not need a special treatment, while patients with high risk should be treated with bisphosphonates. Our results suggested more musculoskeletal disorders were observed in patients treated with upfront others ZOL. Since not all patients need upfront ZOL treatment, delayed ZOL may be considered preferentially in some conditions. In addition, although ZO-FAST trial showed that upfront ZOL led to improved DFS, further randomized trials are required to investigate the survival and adverse effects between upfront ZOL and delayed ZOL. Several limitations of this meta-analysis should be considered when interpreting these results. First, of these seven studies, most subjects were Caucasians, while seldom Asians were included. Second, the present results were based on unadjusted RRs. More precise estimation may be adjusted by other potential covariates. Third, due to lack of data on musculoskeletal disorders, three trials were excluded. Since these studies were with small sample size, they were unlikely to change significantly our results.