Trajanoska K, et al. - Experts assessed the relationship of femoral neck bone mineral density (FN-BMD) measured using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) at baseline with fracture risk over a long follow-up time period. Over a long period of time, BMD is still predictive of future fracture. While after a decade, they observed no secular changes in fractures rates, still majority of fractures occur above the osteoporosis threshold, thereby emphasizing the requirement to improve the screening of osteopenic patients.

Methods

• Authors evaluated the incident non-vertebral fractures in 14,613 individuals participating in the Rotterdam Study with up to 20-years of follow-up.

Results

• As per data, 2971 (20.3%) participants had at least one incident non-vertebral fracture during a mean follow-up of 10.7 ± 6.2-years.
• Findings suggested that respectively for men and women the risk for any non-vertebral fracture was 1.37 (95% Confidence Interval (CI): 1.25–1.49) and 1.42 (95%CI: 1.35–1.50).
• Results demonstrated that the majority (79% in men and 75% in women) of all fractures occurred among participants a normal or osteopenic T-score.
• Researchers noted that the per 1000 person-years for the most common fractures the incidence rates were 5.3 [95%CI: 5.0–5.7] for hip, 4.9 [95%CI: 4.6–5.3] for wrist and 2.3 [95%CI: 2.0–2.5] for humerus.
• Findings suggested that they compared participants at an age of 70–80-years across 2 time periods: 1989–2001 (n=2481, 60% women) and 2001–2013 (n=2936, 58% women) in order to evaluate secular trends in fracture incidence at all skeletal sites and found no statistically significant difference (p < 0.05) between fracture incidence rates (ie, incidence of non-vertebral fractures of 26.4 per 1000 PY [95%CI: 24.4-28.5]) between 1989 and 2001, and of 25.4 per 1000 PY [95%CI: 23.0–28.0] between 2001 and 2013.