Evolution and Etiopathogenesis of Bisphosphonates Induced Osteonecrosis of the Jaw

Bisphosphonates (BPs) is widely used as the first line of treatment choice for osteoporosis, Paget’s disease of bone, bone cancer metastasis and hypercalcemia of malignancy. BPs induced osteonecrosis of the jaw (ONJ) is a relatively rare but severe clinical condition cited in English literature since 2003 while exact pathogenesis of BPs induced ONJ is not known until today, but numerous hypotheses were described in recent literature that promote and interlinked the development of BPs induced ONJ. These hypotheses indicate multifactorial nature of its development and factors responsible for that are; long term administration of intravenous nitrogen containing BPs in cancer patients, biological behavior of jaw, antiangiogenic property of BPs and by soft-tissue toxicity etc., All these factors are compounded by the presence of infection that are responsible for lower the pH of the oral cavity, other drugs like administration of corticosteroid, pathologies that cause hypo-calcification of bone, compromised immune response that alters normal healing such as renal transplantation followed by long term oral BPs therapy or chronic diabetic patients receiving BPs therapy and any dentoalveolar trauma. All literature in this review article is search from PubMed, Med-know and Google search engines.