Bone Abstracts

Introduction: Osteoporotic fractures are known to be costly to society but estimates tend to be based on small scale prospective studies. In the following we report national data for healthcare costs due to fractures in patients with osteoporosis.

Study population and methods: All Danish residents aged 35+, mean age 70.5 years, 13% men, 27.3% prior major osteoporotic fracture, who began bisphosphonates for osteoporosis between 1/1997 and 12/2002 (n=39.058) were followed for incident fractures using national health registers (primary care, medications, hospital visits). Cost of residential or home care was not included.

Results: Change in healthcare costs (2010 prices) in the year following fracture compared with the year before irrespective of vital status: (Table 1)

Conclusions: Substantial healthcare costs were observed in patients who had been diagnosed with osteoporosis and subsequently sustained fractures. These costs are compatible with those reported in a smaller longitudinal study from Sweden (Acta Orthop. 2008 79 269–280). However, the present study also shows that patients had considerable healthcare costs in the year before fracture, highlighting the importance of using the change in healthcare costs in models that estimate cost savings due to fractures avoided.