Bone‐forming or anabolic therapies can help to decrease the bone fracture risk for example in postmenopausal women with osteoporosis. In this study, romosozumab resulted in significant and rapid improvements in density and mass at spine and hip as compared to teriparatide. These advantageous effects, perceived after 12 months of treatment, comprised of improvements in the trabecular and cortical compartments.

Romosozumab, a monoclonal antibody helps to increase bone formation and reduce bone resorption, and therefore has promising results for bone volume regulation. In an earlier study, romosozumab found to increase areal BMD at the lumbar spine and total hip compared with placebo, alendronate, and teriparatide in postmenopausal women with low bone mass.

In this international, randomized study, the effect of romosozumab on lumbar spine and hip volumetric BMD (vBMD) and BMC at month 12 as evaluated by QCT in patients  and has been compared with teroparatide.

Three hundred and sixty seven patients were divided into groups who were given teriparatide (20 µg once daily), and  romosozumab subcutaneously (210 mg once-a-month) and a placebo achieved. The QCT measurements were implemented at the lumbar spine (mean of L₁ and L₂ entire vertebral bodies, without the posterior processes) and hip.

Romosozumab considerably increased integral vBMD and BMC at the lumbar spine and total hip from baseline as compared with placebo and teriparatide an year following the treatment. Romosozumab and teriparatide depicted similar improvements in trabecular vertebral vBMD. The cortical vertebral vBMD gains were higher with romosozumab than with teriparatide (13.7% versus 5.7%). The trabecular hip vBMD gains were considerably larger with romosozumab as compared with teriparatide (10.8% versus 4.2%), however were similar for cortical vBMD. At both the hip and spine, the cortical BMC gains were greater with romosozumab than with teriparatide.

The outcomes of this study encourage the continued clinical analysis of romosozumab as a promising therapy to rapidly decrease the risk of fracture in the ongoing phase 3 studies.