Cheap drug effective against weak bones - Sky News Australia

Updated: 04:43, Saturday March 24, 2012

Trials suggest costly hip and knee replacements could be averted by giving patients a drug costing less than a dollar-fifty a day.

The treatment is said to be the first to slow the progress of osteoarthritis, the wear-and-tear disease that destroys joints.

Strontium ranelate, marketed as Protelos in the UK, is a powder that is mixed with water to make a lemon-flavoured drink and is already used to prevent fractures in post-menopausal women with the brittle bone disease osteoporosis.

The new findings is being presented at the European Congress on Osteoporosis and Osteoarthritis in Bordeaux, France.

It shows that Protelos reduces deterioration of knee joint cartilage by a third over three years and leads to a significant reduction in pain and improved day-to-day mobility.