ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: In patients with spinal cord injury, it is more susceptible to osteoporosis because bone resorption is more prominent than bone formation. Thus we evaluated the change of biochemical markers and bone mineral densities (BMDs) according to the duration of injury, the spinal cord injury level, and the injury severity. METHOD: The subjects were included 26 patients with spinal cord injury and 22 healthy men. We measured serum osteocalcin and urine deoxypyridinoline (DPYD) in 2 hours after awakening and measured BMDs in lumbar vertebrae, femur, and distal forearm in patients and control group. The patients were 21 men, 5 women, mean age 43.2+/-14.3 years, and mean duration 28.3+/-45.0 months, who were divided by injury level and injury severity respectively. RESULTS: The biochemical markers of bone metabolism in patients group had significant differences comparing to control group (p<0.05). The urine DPYD and BMDs in femur showed significantly negative correlation with the duration of spinal cord injury (p<0.05). CONCLUSION: In patients with spinal cord injury, urine DPYD and BMDs in femur had significant correlation with the duration of injury. But, the injury level and injury severity had no significant correlation with the markers of bone metabolism and BMDs.