Retired nurse urges caution on screening (From Stroud News and Journal)

Retired nurse urges caution on screening

A WOMAN who has spent the last two years trying to cope with a disease she now believes she never had has warned others not to fall into the same trap.

Retired nurse Kathleen Buxton, 77, of Beeches Green has been taking bone-building drugs unnecessarily to treat osteoporosis since 1999 after going for an ultrasound scan run by Osteoporosis Screening Services.

Now she has discovered those running the service have no medical credentials and use machinery which cannot diagnose osteoporosis.

Mrs Buxton was shocked to learn that according to an x-ray at a private hospital recently that she has never suffered from osteoporosis.

"I paid £35 for the first scan and I was told I was almost at the danger level and should go to see my GP," said Mrs Buxton.

"I was told to take bone-strengthening drugs to stop it getting any worse." Two years later she returned to the screening service's mobile clinic which visits Stroud every six months, to find out if her bones were making a recovery.

To her surprise the technician told her they appeared to be even weaker, despite her medication.

"I was told I was in the danger zone. According to them I had osteoporosis," said Mrs Buxton.

But Louise Bonomo, who runs the Osteoporosis Screening Services company, said staff knew far more about ultrasound than general practitioners even though they were not doctors.

"They are fully trained technicians," she said.

"They are trained by us and by the manufacturers of the machine." But Ms Bonomo disputed that Mrs Buxton had been told she had osteoporosis.

"We never told her she had osteoporosis. We told her she had low bone density, which is accurate," she said.

"It's not something you can fabricate, it's a scientific test.

"According to the World Health Organisation she was at risk - that's the World Health Authority saying that, not us."

Alarm bells started ringing for Mrs Buxton when her husband saw an advert in a national newspaper run by the National Osteoporosis Society (NOS) highlighting the fact it was not affiliated with this company and advising people to go straight to their GP if they had any concerns about the disease.

She booked herself into a private hospital for a DXA x-ray scan, a more widely accepted procedure than the ultrasound which confirmed she did not have osteoporosis - in fact it showed that her bones were in fine condition for her age.

Trevor Reid of the NOS said people needed to be aware of what was on offer from mobile screening centres.

"You go to these things, you pay your money, have your scan and are given some results," he said.

"The problem is that although ultrasound is a good diagnostic tool it only gives an indication of bone density, it doesn't diagnose osteoporosis.

"Some of these mobile units are privately run as franchises," said Trevor Reid of the NOS.

"You don't have to be a medical professional," he told the News & Journal.

"You or I could buy a franchise area and a white coat and set up tomorrow." He advised anyone who was concerned about osteoporosis to speak to their doctor.

"They should tell their GP they want to get their bone health checked out," he said.

"If they are in an 'at risk' group their GP should be able to arrange a DXA scan on the National Health."

Ms Bonomo hit back at NOS and said while she could not speak for other companies hers did not run franchises.

"The NOS is not a regulatory body and it does not have the right to say what we are doing is no good," she said.

Ian McCue, owner of the company which makes the ultrasound machines, said they were not for the diagnosis of osteoporosis, which requires x-ray equipment under the WHO's definition of the disease but they were very good at checking for the risk of fracture due to osteoporosis.

Ms Bonomo said: "We scanned 12,500 people and 99 per cent of them were happy with the service. This woman's doctor was prepared to give her medication on the basis of our results."

But Mrs Buxton was still not happy yesterday.

"They call it the Osteoporosis Screening Service, osteoporosis being the operative word," she said.

"That would seem to imply they're going to tell you if you've got it, which is what everyone wants to know.

"But they're not, are they?"