CALCANEAL BONE-MINERAL DENSITY PREDICTS FRACTURE OCCURRENCE - A 5-YEAR FOLLOW-UP-STUDY IN ELDERLY PEOPLE

A 5-year follow-up study investigated calcaneal bone mineral density ( BMD) and changes in BMD in relation to fracture occurrence, The subjec ts comprised two cohorts born in 1914 and 1910 living in the city of J yvaskyla in central Finland, One hundred and three men (82%) and 188 w omen (73%), aged 75, and 57 men (74%) and 136 women (65%), aged 80, of the eligible population participated in the baseline bone measurement s, The follow-up bone measurements were obtained for 59 men (68%) and 119 women (66%), aged 80 years, and for 21 men (53%) and 61 women (48% ), aged 85 years, During the follow-up period, 8 men and 36 women from the younger and 11 men and 24 women from the older cohort sustained a t least one fracture, When the baseline levels of BMD were related to fracture occurrence, the results clearly showed that with increased BM D values the probability of fracture decreased, Where men and women ha d similar BMD values, they also had a similar fracture probability, Ex cept for one woman in the older cohort, none of those who had initial BMD values more than 1 standard deviation above the mean for their age developed a fracture during the follow-up period, The mean annual dec rease in BMD was greater in the women (2.5-2.7%) than in the men (0.8- 1.0%), The BR;ID change tended to associate with fracture occurrence o nly in the 75-year-old women (p = 0.075), The results suggest that cal caneus BMD can be used as a predictor of fracture occurrence in 75- to 80-year-old men and women. However, associating fractures with the ch ange in BMD was difficult due to the limited number of survivors and i nitial differences in BMD values.