Osteoporosis Risk Assessment

Ob-jec-ti-ve: The aim of this study was to determine which patients have priority for Bone Mineral Density (BMD) measurement by using osteoporosis risk indices in order to reduce diagnostic costs. Metarials and Methods: BMD at the lumbar spine (L1-L4) and the femur neck was measured using Dual Energy X-Ray absorptiometry in 537 post-menopausal women aged 45 years or older. Risk indices like Osteoporosis Screening Tool (OST), Simple Calculated Osteoporosis Risk Estimation (SCORE), Osteoporosis Risk Assessment Instrument (ORAI), Osteoporosis Index of Risk (OSIRIS) and the WHO Fracture Risk Assessment Tool (FRAX) scores were calculated. Sensitivity, selectivity, positive and negative predictive values of the indexes was investigated to detect patients with low BMD. Results: Osteoporosis was observed in34,3% of the subjects. Osteoporosis rate was found to be high in high-risk groups of all indexes. The most effective indices were observed to be OST, SCORE and FRAX-H, in terms of sensitivity, selectivity, positive and negative predicting value. However, in the lumbar region, ratio of patients that can be missed using indexes was not found low enough. Conclusion: In this study, the most effective indices were observed to be OST, SCORE and FRAX-H. The rate of overlooked patients was not low enough in the lumbar area. We believe that, it would be useful to use screening tests for femur osteoporosis. Turk J Phys Med Re-hab 2012;58:212-19.