Mostly just intended to let everyone know that I’m taking July off for birthday month and recovery from cataract surgery and assorted other distractions. I’ll write if there’s breaking news, but otherwise, I’m taking the month off from deadlines and commitments.
But first, I need to share a journal article with some really great data showing a significant improvement in dental health for adults on burosumab. The conclusion of “Improved Oral Health in Adults with X-Linked Hypophosphatemia Treated with Burosumab” is even better than I was hoping for: “There was a 55.9% reduction of infections during [phosphate/calcitriol treatment] and an 86.4% reduction during burosumab treatment compared to periods with no treatment …”
We already knew that even the terrible old treatment was better than no treatment at all for oral health, but patients and clinicians would have to weigh the benefit of that treatment on oral health with the adverse effects on the kidneys and parathyroid and digestion. If patients went on the old treatment as adults, they would pay for their improved oral health with worsened health in other ways. But now we have a comparison of burosumab effectiveness on oral health, not just in contrast with no-=treatment, but also to the phosphate/calcitriol treatment, and the burosumab is signficantly better. It’s also good news that this research is on adult teeth, which suggests the benefits go beyond what can be achieved by treating really young children before their adult teeth are fully formed. In other words: it’s not too late to benefit from burosumab if you start treatment later in life!
Okay, so now for what I originally intended to write about today: a few links to my favorite posts of the last few months in case you missed them before.
Misclassified classifications (ICD11 issues)
And finally, this one includes a link to another journal article from earlier this year, showing benefits of burosumab treatment on adult teeth.
See you next on August 7th!
***
Please note that the author is a well-read patient, not a doctor, and is not offering medical or legal advice.
If you’d prefer to read this blog as a newsletter, sent straight to your inbox, please sign up here.