Prevalence of osteoporosis: discrepancy according to the skeletal areas of evaluation

Abstract

There is discrepancy in the election of skeletal areas to be measured to determine the prevalence of osteoporosis.The International Society for Clinical Densitometry suggests evaluating the lumbar spine and proximal femur, while the International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF) suggests measuring only the femoral neck.The estimate of the prevalence of osteoporosis (OP) evaluated only for femoral neck (FN) in women over 50 years of Buenos Aires showed underdiagnosis of 53%. Objective: To analyze the discrepancy on the prevalence of OP, according to the skeletal area evaluated by DXA, in international studies. Material and Methods: We included the works published in the international English literature that contained: 1- Simultaneous measurement of lumbar spine (LS) and femoral neck (FN), 2- Analysis for decades from 50 years and up to at least the decade 70-79, 3- Densitometric diagnosis of osteoporosis according to WHO: T-score ≤-2.5. Results: Twelve studies were included. The evaluation of these studies showed an overall underdiagnosis of 52% if the prevalence of OP was estimated only for bone mineral density of the femoral neck.When we analyzed for decades the underestimation was 75% in the sixth decade, 58% in the seventh and 22% in the eighth decade, clearly showing that the underdiagnosis decreases as age increases and disappears after 80 years. Conclusion: This over-all review of 12 studies indicates that lumbar spine as well as femoral neck should be assessed by DXA to determine the prevalence of osteoporosis.