At Odds About the Odds: Women's Choices to Accept Osteoporosis Medications Do Not Closely Agree with Physician-Set Treatment Thresholds

Background: Osteoporosis guidelines recommend pharmacologic therapy based on 10-year risk of major osteoporotic fracture (MOF) and hip fracture, which may fail to account for patient-specific experiences and values.

Objective: We aimed to determine whether patient decisions to initiate osteoporosis medication agree with guideline-recommended intervention thresholds.

Design And Participants: This prospective cohort study included women aged ≥ 45 with age-associated osteoporosis who attended a group osteoporosis self-management consultation at a tertiary osteoporosis center.

Intervention: A group osteoporosis self-management consultation, during which participants received osteoporosis education and then calculated their 10-year MOF and hip fracture risk using FRAX and their predicted absolute fracture risk with therapy (assuming 40% relative reduction). Participants then made autonomous decisions regarding treatment initiation.

Main Measures: We evaluated agreement between treatment decisions and physician-set intervention thresholds (10-year MOF risk ≥ 20%, hip fracture risk ≥ 3%).

Key Results: Among 85 women (median [IQR] age 62 [58-67]), 27% accepted treatment (median [IQR] MOF risk, 15.1% [9.9-22.0]; hip fracture risk, 3.3% [1.3-5.3]), 46% declined (MOF risk, 9.5% [6.5-11.6]; hip fracture risk, 1.8% [0.6-2.3]), and 27% remained undecided (MOF risk, 14.0% [9.8-20.2]; hip fracture risk, 4.4% [1.7-4.9]). There was wide overlap in fracture risk between treatment acceptors and non-acceptors. Odds of accepting treatment were higher in women with prior fragility fracture (50% accepted; OR, 5.3; 95% CI, 1.9-15.2; p = 0.0015) and with hip fracture risk ≥ 3% (32% accepted; OR, 3.6; 95% CI, 1.4-9.2; p = 0.012), but not MOF risk ≥ 20% (47% accepted; OR, 3.0; 95% CI, 1.0-8.5; p = 0.105).

Conclusions: Informed decisions to start osteoporosis treatment are highly personal and not easily predicted using fracture risk. Guideline-recommended intervention thresholds may not permit sufficient consideration of patient preferences.