Postmenopausal Women At Greater Risk For Subsequent Bone Fractures

Fractures in the arm, wrist, leg, and other parts of the body also increases the risk for subsequent bone breaks apart from specifically hip or spine fractures as per the current guidelines for managing osteoporosis.

Fractures in the arm, wrist, leg, and other parts of the body should also set off alarm bells for increasing the risk for subsequent bone breaks in the current guidelines for managing osteoporosis apart from specifically calling out hip or spine fractures as per the University Of California - Los Angeles Health Sciences (UCLA) -led study, published in the peer-reviewed journal EClinicalMedicine.

"A fracture, no matter the location, indicates a general tendency to break a bone in the future at a different location. Current clinical guidelines have only been emphasizing hip and spine fractures, but our findings challenge that viewpoint. By not paying attention to which types of fractures increase the risk of future fractures, we are missing the opportunity to identify people at increased risk of future fracture and counsel them regarding risk reduction. Postmenopausal women and their physicians may not have been aware that even a knee fracture, for example, is associated with increased risk of future fractures at other locations of the body," says Dr. Carolyn Crandall, the study's lead author and a professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

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‘Fractures in the arm, wrist, leg, and other parts of the body also increases the risk for subsequent bone breaks in post-menopausal women, apart from specifically hip or spine fractures as per the current guidelines for managing osteoporosis. However aggressive follow-up of postmenopausal women who experience initial fracture is mandatory.’

The study team analyzed records for more than 157,000 women aged 50 through 79 from 1993 through 2018, sourced from the Women's Health Initiative, a national study funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

Fractures in Post-Menopausal Women

It was found that initial fractures of the lower arm or wrist, upper arm or shoulder, upper leg, knee, lower leg or ankle, and hip or pelvis were associated with an approximately three- to six-fold increase in risk for subsequent fractures among postmenopausal women.

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The finding held for all of the age groups studied, with higher risks being more pronounced among non-Hispanic Black, Hispanic or Latina, and Asian Pacific Islander women than among non-Hispanic White women. However self-reported fractures by participants stand as the limitations to the study

However, earlier research has demonstrated that statistics for self-reported fractures are fairly accurate compared with statistics from medical records.

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Another shortcoming of the study was that there was no information about broken ribs, which may have led them to underestimate the risk for other fractures.

The bone mineral density was measured for only a subset of participants, so the team could not investigate whether the risk for future fractures was associated with bone density. Thus there is a requirement for more studies to understand why women of some ethnicities have a greater risk for a subsequent fracture following an initial bone break.

The study thereby indicates that aggressive follow-up of postmenopausal women who experience initial fracture is mandatory. The study results would help inform counseling, future guidelines, and the design of intervention trials regarding the selection of appropriate candidates for pharmacotherapy.

Source-Medindia