The bisphosphonates are a family of drugs commonly used for treatment of bone changes caused mainly by malignant neoplasias and osteoporosis.

Treatment with bisphosphonate drugs is associated with several complications including renal and gastrointestinal side effects, particularly esophageal ulceration, but the most serious is that of osteonecrosis of the jaw.

This is a research in the city of Cali, Colombia (third city of the country with approximately 2,930,000 of habitants), of descriptive type with the oral and maxillofacial surgeons, where the characteristics observed in the patients are registered attended in the last 2 years.

The investigation obtained the acceptability of the Human Research Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Health of the Universidad del Valle and still it is in execution, estimating that the results will be ready in three months. The plan of statistical analysis includes analyses univaried and multivaried and t tests.

The following criteria were used to diagnose jaw osteonecrosis: lesion exposing the bone that developed either spontaneously or after a tooth extraction in a non-irradiated region, failure to heal despite appropriate management, bisphosphonate therapy, and absence of local metastasis or myeloma tumor.

For each patient, the following data were collected: genre, age, prior medical history, cardiovascular risk factors (hypertension, diabetes, hypercholesterolemia, history of angina and/or myocardial infarctions and/or peripheral occlusive arterial disease), tobacco and alcohol consumption, dental status, history of tooth extraction or other dental procedure prior to the diagnosis of jaw osteonecrosis, reason for bisphosphonate therapy, time and type of bisphosphonates treatment.

Conflict of interest : None declared.