Dr. Fishberg Quoted in LA TIMES

Congrats to Dr. Fishberg of our faculty! He was quoted in the LA Times for an article on osteopenia and osteoporosis. Here's the quote in its entirety:

Dr. Alexander Fishberg, medical director at the Center for Family Medicine at Florida Hospital, acknowledges that some physicians have fallen into the trap of treating osteopenia like a disease rather than an increased risk. "I think some women may get treated where the risk of fracture is very low," Fishberg says.

But he says that patients shouldn't shrug off concerns about osteopenia, and he points to evidence that many women in the osteopenia category will get fractures.

Fishberg takes T-scores into consideration but says that the decision about whether to treat osteopenia shouldn't be based on the score alone. Fishberg relies on the WHO calculator called FRAX, which takes into account a woman's age, ethnicity, family health history, lifestyle decisions like smoking and drinking and other risk factors. With all of that information, the FRAX algorithm makes two predictions: the chance that a woman will fracture a hip in the next 10 years, and the chance that she will fracture either her hip, spine, forearm or shoulder in the next 10 years. (Anyone can try FRAX online at http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/FRAX.)

The discussion between a patient and her doctor should involve factors such as lifestyle, exercise, calcium and vitamin D, he says.

"That's how I make my decisions," Fishberg says. "A good old-fashioned discussion with your patient to help form a plan so that both parties agree that the treatment is right for them."

Ultimately, the decision about whether to be treated for osteopenia must be made by the patient and doctor, he says: "In this day and age, our treatment should be individualized. An individual score does not define the woman."