Usefulness of armspan and height comparison in detecting vertebral deformities in women

The prevalence of vertebral fractures in women increases with age but only about one third of these fractures are symptomatic. On the other hand, the presence of vertebral fractures is an independent risk factor for new osteo porotic fractures. In the present study we examined the hypothesis that dif ferences between armspan and height are related to the presence of vertebra l deformities in a cohort of 494 women aged between 55 and 84 years (mean a ge 67.6 years, SD 8.2 years) who were randomly selected from a large genera l practice in The Netherlands. Height and armspan were measured and vertebr al morphometry of lateral radiographs of the spine was performed. Both heig ht and armspan decreased significantly with age. The correlation between ar mspan and height was 0.83. Vertebral deformities were present in 32.7% of t he women (grade I in 22.4% and grade II in 10.3%). Only the prevalence of g rade II deformities rose with age. The variation of the difference between armspan and height in the groups with or without grade II vertebral deformi ties was comparable and relatively large (range >15 cm). The difference in mean values was small between those groups (1.6 cm) and could not different iate between women with and without vertebral deformities. Our data show th at the presence of vertebral deformities cannot be detected by the differen ce between armspan and height.