Biochemical Markers of Bone Turnover in the Clinical Development of Drugs for Osteoporosis and Metastatic Bone DiseasePotential Uses and Pitfalls

Biochemical markers of bone turnover are used increasingly during the clinical development of drugs for the treatment of metabolic bone diseases such as Paget’s disease, osteoporosis and cancer that has metastasised to the bone. However, assessing the optimal value of these markers is often complicated, and such an assessment is an obvious prerequisite for rational use of the markers and, consequently, potential improvement of clinical drug development.