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Biochemical Markers
Biochemical
markers or bone turnover markers can be used to help your doctor
determine how rapidly bone in your skeleton is breaking down and
forming. Your doctor may also use bone turnover markers to monitor how
well your osteoporosis medication is working. In fact, blood and urine
biochemical markers can detect how rapidly bone is removed or formed
within several months after starting an osteoporosis medication.
Biochemical markers can be measured in blood and in urine. Biochemical markers of bone turnover (the process of bone breakdown and bone formation) are generally divided into two types: bone resorption (bone breakdown) and bone formation markers. Each
of the resorption and formation markers is a product of the action of
the osteoclasts (cells that break down bone) or osteoblasts (cells that build bone). These
markers are released during bone turnover. Bone resorption markers
measure the breakdown of bone by the osteoclasts and are measured in
either the urine as N-telopeptide (NTX) or in the blood as
C-telopeptide (CTX).
Osteoblasts produce various chemicals
called markers of bone formation including bone-specific alkaline
phosphatase (BAP), osteocalcin (OC) or Procollagen type I N-terminal peptide (PINP).
It
is important to know that these biochemical markers are not used to
diagnose osteoporosis; only a bone mineral density test can do that.
However, your doctor or medical professional may want to look at
the results of both your bone density tests and your biochemical
markers in order to decide on your treatment plan. Your
doctor may also choose to repeat the biochemical markers in a
few months to see how well the treatment is working, before the bone
density test would show any change.
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