Bone Abstracts

Fracture prevalence in children appears to change in recent years due to variations in physical activity and enforcement of laws that protect children within motor vehicles. However, in Mexico such variation has not been explored so far.

Objective: To analyze fracture prevalence in the paediatric population of Mexico to detect patterns of change in time, between genres and among different diagnoses.

Methods: We analyzed data from the main Social Security system in the country (IMSS) using data of fractures in children 0–19 years-old from 2007 to 2017 to look for trends in general fracture rate, differences between genres and different types of fractures. IMSS uses ICD10 to code fractures, we obtained the number of cases for each diagnosis divided by the total number of affiliates grouped by ages (0–4, 5–9, 10–14 and 15–19 years-old) to obtain prevalences.

Results: Total prevalence of fractures in children ages 0 to 19 decreased from 0.942/10000 in 2007 to 0.758/10000 in 2017. This trend is due to decrease in fractures of skull and face (S02), ribs and sternum (S22) and to a minor extent shoulders and arm (S42). Lower limb fractures like femur (S72) leg and ankle (S82) show no significant changes in time. Year-to-year analysis by groups of age showed a pattern: Increases prevalence of fractures in boys as they age, as well as decreasing prevalence in girls as they reach puberty.

Conclusions: This analysis is a first glance at information needed to evaluate the trends in fractures en Mexico. While one of the limitations of this data is the lack of knowledge about mechanisms of lesion and the place where they took place, it is a first step to analyze changes in habits and better protection of children in certain environments, such as motor vehicles, and the relationship with fracture prevalence.

Disclosure: The authors declared no competing interests.