Bone Abstracts

Objective: Osteoporotic fracture is the most severe complication of osteoporosis and vertebral column suffer the highest risk. The aim of the part I study was to evaluate the prevalence of vertebral fracture, distribution of prevalent fractures as well the grade of the fractures in community-dwelling elderly in China southern city.

Methods: A population of 6142 elderly over 50 years old from four communities in China southern city was gathered voluntarily through chester sampling from July 2014 to October 2015. All participants took X-ray plain film of lateral thoracic and lumbar spine by Rontgen unit in community health centre and the films were read by an experienced radiography observer in local People’s Hospital. Semiquantitative assessment by Genant et al. was adapted in grading the fracture and grade1 deformity or higher was considered fractured.

Results: Till December 2015, 4197 reports were prepared and analysed consisted of 1898 male (50–94 years) and 2299 female (50–90 years). The prevalence of vertebral fracture is 7.17% for male only and 11.05% for female only, among which, 137 happened at thoracic spine only, 158 took place at lumbar spine only and 95 individuals had fractures at both places. Of those 390, L2 is the most prevalent as 17.95% and T12 had the highest prevalence in all thoracic body which is 13.85%. The table shows prevalence for each age group.

Conclusions: This is the first and pioneering study focused on vertebral fracture of community-dwelling elderly in China. The prevalence of vertebral fracture in China southern city is 9.29% in total. Women are more risky than man at any age group. T12 and L2 is the most prevalent in thoracic and lumbar spine respectively. The whole study will be a longitudinal epidemiology research and more relationships with other diseases as hypertension and diabetes will be investigated in following parts.