Prepared and published by Update Software Ltd . All rights reserved. Cochrane reviews are regularly checked and updated if necessary. Corticosteroid-induced osteoporosis is a cause of morbidity in patients with chronic obstructive lung disease, asthma, and rheumatologic disorders.
Corticosteroid treatment causes bone loss by a variety of complex mechanisms.
We also searched bibliographic references and consulted content experts. Two reviewers independently extracted data using predetermined forms and assessed methodological quality of randomization, blinding and dropouts. We decided a priori to use random effects models for all outcomes, because of uncertainty about whether a consistent true effect exists in such different populations. The median methodologic quality was two out of a maximum of five points. The subgroup analyses of methodological quality and duration of corticosteroid therapy were confounded.