Vertebral fractures in adult women with type 2 diabetes mellitus

Abstract

Introduction. Diabetes is a chronic disease associated with important comorbidities. Type 2 diabetes (T2DM) is associated with a three times increased risk of hip fracture but reports describing potential associations with vertebral fractures (VF) are contradictory. Our objective was to evaluate the factors involved in the prevalent VF in women with and without T2DM.
Materials and methods. A cross-sectional design was used and the relationship between morphometric VF and T2DM in adult women was evaluated. The cases were adult women with morphometric VF and the controls were adult women without VF. Thoracic and spinal radiographs in lateral and antero-posterior projections were obtained. Bone mineral density (BMD) values of the lumbar spine (L-BMD) were measured by DXA.
Results. A greater number of women with T2DM were found in the VF group (61% vs 31.5%). Non-T2DM women with VF were significantly older and with lower L-BMD than non-T2DM without VF. We observed a negative correlation between age and L-BMD (r=-0.463) in non-T2DM women, but not in the T2DM with FV group. T2DM was a risk factor for prevalent VF with OR of 3.540 (IC95% 1.750-7.160).
Conclusion. Our study showed a higher prevalence of T2DM in the VF group. T2DM women with VF were younger and had higher L-BMD than non-T2DM women, L-BMD did not correlate with age and VF were not distributed according to BMD-L and age.