Abstract
Corticosteroids are key medications to treat pulmonary diseases. A variety of medications, doses, administration route, and duration of corticosteroids were chosen for each of pulmonary diseases. Although corticosteroids are potent medications, they often cause serious adverse effects such as osteoporosis, diabetes, and immunosuppression. Thus, physicians have to properly assess the risk of adverse effects to prevent them. In this review, we discuss the risk of osteoporosis by corticosteroids that are prescribed for pulmonary diseases. Inhaled corticosteroids are not serious risk factors of osteoporosis. If systemic corticosteroids are planned to be administrated in the prednisolone equivalent dosage of 5 mg/day or more for three months or longer, risk of bone fracture have to be assessed regardless of the primary pulmonary disease. If necessary, prophylactic agent such as bisphosphonates should be prescript.
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