The International Osteoporosis Foundation recently announced a partnership with the University of Oxford, Amgen and UCB to combat the global public health burden of osteoporosis. We talk to Cyrus Cooper to find out more about the initiative.
SSN: Tell us a little about your background and education and your current role within the Capture the Fracture initiative?
CC: In my current role I am Professor of Musculoskeletal Science at the University of Oxford, and I’m the director of the MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit at the Universities of Oxford and Southampton. I am also President of the International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF), and was the Chair of their Scientific Committee between 2008 and 2013, prior to taking on the presidency four years ago.
I was the Founder of Capture the Fracture in 2010 when I chaired the IOF Scientific Committee. At that time we undertook a systematic review of the literature, looking at secondary fracture prevention, and found about 50 papers which documented the effectiveness of Fracture Liaison Services (what we now refer to as Post Fracture Care PFC) as part of a secondary preventive strategy against osteoporosis and fracture.
From this we incepted international guidance and set up a worldwide map of where PFCs were operating around the world. There is now something like 450 registered PFC sites worldwide.
We set up criteria for the quality of PFC, with designations of gold, silver and bronze, and each PFC that was interested in doing so could have its quality set according to this benchmark.
SSN: How did the collaboration between IOF, Amgen, UCB and the University of Oxford come about and how, together, are you aiming to reduce hip and vertebral fractures by 25 per cent, by 2025?
CC: Since the inception of Capture the Fracture, secondary fracture prevention grew sharply in the United Kingdom, a few countries in Europe, Australia, and on the west coast of the United States, as well as Canada.
We recognised that there was a huge undersupply of osteoporosis treatment: patients who had alr