Patient data collected by GPs since 2005 can thus be considered exhaustive and non-redundant. For each patient, information on disease status and medication prescription is entered directly into the database by the physician at the time of the consultation. No information as to the reasons for making individual diagnostic or prescription
choices is, however, provided. The disease status is encoded using terms from a specific thesaurus of symptoms and disease entities adapted from the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) system. Prescription data contain BYL719 solubility dmso the dispensed drug name (commercial and international common denomination), the Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical (ATC) classification category, dose regimens and prescription duration. Study population We identified all female patients in the Thales database, aged over 45 years who had received a first prescription of either a weekly or a monthly bisphosphonate treatment between January 2007 (date of introduction of ibandronate in France) and the end of 2007. The index date for the analysis was the date of the initial prescription. These patients were followed up prospectively until January 2008 to evaluate treatment adherence. A retrospective GW-572016 cell line analysis was also performed covering the period from January 2006 to January 2007 in order to identify
subjects who had been prescribed any other osteoporosis treatment (bisphosphonates, selective oestrogen receptor modulators or strontium ranelate) during Buspirone HCl the 12-month period prior to the index prescription, who were excluded. In order to ensure completeness of data, patients were also required to have consulted their GP at least twice a year for any reason during the retrospective and prospective follow-up periods (January 2006–January 2008). In order to restrict the analysis to patients who discontinued treatment definitively, we excluded any women who subsequently switched treatment from one bisphosphonate to another during the follow-up
period. Study subjects were then assigned to one of two cohorts on the basis of their treatment administration regimen, namely, a weekly (risedronate 35 mg or alendronate 70 mg with or without vitamin D) or a monthly (ibandronate 150 mg) cohort. Within the weekly cohort, women receiving alendronate and those receiving risedronate were pooled, on the basis that the two bisphosphonates present side effect profiles and risks of discontinuation [25]. Data collection Data were collected on demographic and clinical variables at the time of the index prescription. Information on comorbidities and other medication use or clinical examinations at the time of the index prescription and during the follow-up period were recorded for each patient. All prescriptions for bisphosphonates during the follow-up period were identified.