could osteopetrosis "stone bone or marble bone disease" be treated by chemical agents that cause osteoporosis such as corticosteroids.
Perhaps. But you may end up with thin/fragile bone tissue if the balance of OC/OB is shifted too far, and you would need to continue treatment for a long period of time to allow for bone resorption, which could also have other side effects.
`Diphos´,`Didronel´ (Etidronat) could be helpful, as it is used in heterotopic calcification.
Dosage 2g/d orally not exceeding 4 months.
Steroids are actually used in some cases to treat the disease, but mainly to increase
circulating red blood cells and platelets, and not for osteoporotic effects which can happen with prolonged steroid use (e.g. steroid-induced osteoporosis). However, a major problem with osteopetrosis is craniofacial and jawbone osteomyelitis which can be life threatening, and immunosuppression secondary to chronic steroid therapy can be problematic in such cases which require antimicrobial and surgical approaches to treat. Clinically or surgically the bone in osteopetrosis cases is not all that hard and can be pretty soft actually, so even though the density or quantity of bone is greater, the quality is poor and abnormal. This demonstrates the delicate balance of osteoblastic and osteoclastic activity required in vivo for normal bone formation, which you can't get with antiresorptive (e.g. bisphosphonates) or bone anabolic (e.g. steroid) drugs because it's just not natural in such settings. In lower doses or concentrations/regimens, steroids can be anabolic and build bone, whereas in higher or longer term dosing they cause osteoporosis. So you would need longer regimens for osteopetrosis treatment, but my hunch is this would just further perturb the balance of bone metabolism artificially and not help much clinically or makes things worse via adverse events.
All the best!
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