A reference standard for the description of osteoporosis.
Journal article, 2008

In 1994, the World Health Organization published diagnostic criteria for osteoporosis. Since then, many new technologies have been developed for the measurement of bone mineral at multiple skeletal sites. The information provided by each assessment will describe the clinical characteristics, fracture risk and epidemiology of osteoporosis differently. Against this background, there is a need for a reference standard for describing osteoporosis. In the absence of a true gold standard, this paper proposes that the reference standard should be based on bone mineral density (BMD) measurement made at the femoral neck with dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA). This site has been the most extensively validated, and provides a gradient of fracture risk as high as or higher than that of many other techniques. The recommended reference range is the NHANES III reference database for femoral neck measurements in women aged 20-29 years. A similar cut-off value for femoral neck BMD that is used to define osteoporosis in women can be used for the diagnosis of osteoporosis in men - namely, a value for BMD 2.5 SD or more below the average for young adult women. The adoption of DXA as a reference standard provides a platform on which the performance characteristics of less well established and new methodologies can be compared.

pathology

Osteoporosis

diagnosis

pathology

Bone Density

anatomy & histology

Femur Neck

Metabolic

Humans

Photon

Reference Standards

diagnosis

Bone Diseases

Absorptiometry

Sex Factors

Author

John A Kanis

Eugene V McCloskey

Helena Johansson

University of Gothenburg

Anders Odén

University of Gothenburg

Chalmers, Mathematical Sciences, Mathematical Statistics

L Joseph Melton

Nikolai Khaltaev

Bone

8756-3282 (ISSN)

Vol. 42 3 467-75

Subject Categories

Endocrinology and Diabetes

Physiology

DOI

10.1016/j.bone.2007.11.001

PubMed

18180210

More information

Created

10/6/2017