Association Between Abdominal Aortic Calcification, Bone Mineral Density, and Fracture in Older Women.

Although a relationship between vascular disease and osteoporosis has been recognized, its clinical importance for fracture risk evaluation remains uncertain. Abdominal aortic calcification (AAC), a recognized measure of vascular disease detected on single-energy images performed for vertebral fracture assessment, may also identify increased osteoporosis risk. In a prospective 10-year study of 1024 older predominantly white women (mean age 75.0 ± 2.6 years) from the Perth Longitudinal Study of Aging cohort, we evaluated the association between AAC, skeletal structure, and fractures. AAC and spine fracture were assessed at the time of hip densitometry and heel quantitative ultrasound. AAC was scored 0 to 24 (AAC24) and categorized into low AAC (score 0 and 1, n = 459), moderate AAC (score 2 to 5, n = 373), and severe AAC (score >6, n = 192). Prevalent vertebral fractures were calculated using the Genant semiquantitative method. AAC24 scores were inversely related to hip BMD ( r s = -0.077, p = 0.013), heel broadband ultrasound attenuation ( r s = -0.074, p = 0.020), and the Stiffness Index ( r s = -0.073, p = 0.022). In cross-sectional analyses, women with moderate to severe AAC were more likely to have prevalent fracture and lumbar spine imaging-detected lumbar spine fractures, but not thoracic spine fractures (Mantel-Haenszel test of trend p < 0.05). For 10-year incident clinical fractures and fracture-related hospitalizations, women with moderate to severe AAC (AAC24 score >1) had increased fracture risk (HR 1.48; 95% CI, 1.15 to 1.91; p = 0.002; HR 1.46; 95% CI, 1.07 to 1.99; p = 0.019, respectively) compared with women with low AAC. This relationship remained significant after adjusting for age and hip BMD for clinical fractures (HR 1.40; 95% CI, 1.08 to 1.81; p = 0.010), but was attenuated for fracture-related hospitalizations (HR 1.33; 95% CI, 0.98 to 1.83; p = 0.073). In conclusion, older women with more marked AAC are at higher risk of fracture, not completely captured by bone structural predictors. These findings further support the concept that vascular calcification and bone pathology may share similar mechanisms of causation that remain to be fully elucidated © 2019 American Society for Bone and Mineral Research.

Adding Lateral Spine Imaging for Vertebral Fractures to Densitometric Screening: Improving Ascertainment of Patients at High Risk of Incident Osteoporotic Fractures.

The current diagnosis of osteoporosis is limited to a T-score ≤-2.5. However, asymptomatic vertebral fractures (VF) are known to predict a high risk of subsequent fractures and pharmaceutical intervention is known to reduce future fracture risk in these individuals. In a prospective, population-based cohort of ambulant older women, we sought to evaluate the role of VF detection by screening densitometric lateral spine imaging (LSI) for VF at time of bone density testing to the effect on the magnitude of fracture risk. A total of 1084 women (mean age 75 years ± SD 3 years) had baseline LSI that identified 100 (9%) women with VFs and 89 (8%) with femoral neck (FN) T-score osteoporosis ≤-2.5. Follow-up identified incident clinical spine fracture in 73 (7%), 305 (28%) with any fracture-related hospitalization, and 121 (11%) with a hip fracture-related hospitalization. Compared with those without baseline VF, in those with baseline VF, relative risk (RR) for incident clinical spine, hip, and any fracture were 3.46 (95% confidence interval [CI] 2.14-5.60, p < 0.001); 1.72 (95% CI 1.09-2.71, p = 0.02), and 1.4 (95% CI 1.07-1.84, p = 0.02), respectively. In 675 (62%) of women with femoral neck osteopenia (T-score <-1 to >-2.5), 61 (9%) also had a VF. Compared with those without baseline VF, RR for any incident fragility fractures and fractures at spine and hip in those with baseline VF were 1.6 (95% CI 1.2-2.1, p < 0.01), 3.9 (95% CI 2.2-6.9, p < 0.01), and 1.6 (95% CI 0.9-2.8, p = 0.10), respectively. On basis of the prognosis, older women with LSI VF with osteopenia should be diagnosed with osteoporosis and should be considered for pharmaceutical intervention. © 2018 American Society for Bone and Mineral Research.