The effects of teriparatide and bisphosphonates on new fractures in postmenopausal women with osteoporosis: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: To systematically evaluate the efficacy of teriparatide and bisphosphonates in preventing fractures in postmenopausal women with osteoporosis. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We performed a systematic search of PubMed, Embase, and the Cochrane Library for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that compared teriparatide and bisphosphonates for osteoporosis treatment. Searches were performed without language restrictions and included studies from beginning of time to March 2019. Two authors independently screened and extracted the selected article. The quality of the included studies was evaluated using the Cochrane system evaluation method. Data were extracted and analysed using RevMan 5.2 software. RESULTS: Nine RCTs were included for a total of 2990 postmenopausal women with osteoporosis. Of these, 1515 patients were treated with teriparatide and 1475 were treated with bisphosphonates. After pooling the data of 9 studies, there were significant differences between teriparatide and bisphosphonates [relative risk (RR): 0.61, 95% confidence interval (CI) (0.51, 0.74)] in the prevention of fractures according to different follow-up durations (P < .05), whatever alendronate [RR: 0.51, 95% CI (0.27, 0.95)] and other bisphosphonates [RR: 0.63, 95% CI (0.51, 0.77)]. In addition, we found significant differences between teriparatide and bisphosphonates in the prevention of vertebral fractures [RR: 0.47, 95% CI (0.35, 0.64)] and non-vertebral fractures [RR: 0.76, 95% CI (0.58,0.99)]. There were no significant differences in adverse effects between teriparatide and bisphosphonates [RR: 0.89, 95% CI (0.76, 1.03)]. CONCLUSIONS: Based on the results of our meta-analysis, teriparatide was better than bisphosphonates in preventing fractures in postmenopausal women with osteoporosis both in the short-term and long-term follow-up periods. Teriparatide was superior to bisphosphonates in preventing vertebral and non-vertebral fractures. These drugs did not differ in terms of their adverse effects. More high-quality studies are needed to compare other factors such as costs and adverse reactions.