Quantification of osteopenia in hip fracture patients.

Osteopenia was assessed in 56 consecutive hip fracture patients by using dual photon absorptiometry of the lumbar spine and uninjured, contralateral femoral neck and by performing iliac crest biopsy. Of the 56 patients, 47 were female and 9 were male. The mean age was 78 years. There were 31 femoral neck and 25 intertrochanteric fractures. Two comparison populations were also studied. Population 1 consisted of 269 postmenopausal females older than 60 years of age with no history of fracture who were referred for dual photon absorptiometry of the lumbar spine as screening for osteoporosis. Population 2 included 94 patients with vertebral compression fractures who underwent transilial biopsy to evaluate osteoporosis. All transilial biopsies were assessed with the use of quantitative histomorphometry. Dual photon absorptiometry of the lumbar spine indicated that 76.9% of the hip fracture patients had severe bone loss (less than 1 gm/cm2). Nevertheless, no difference in spinal bone density was found when the hip fracture patients were compared to population 1. No difference in density of the lumbar spine or femoral neck was found in patients in the hip fracture group when intertrochanteric and femoral neck fractures were compared. No difference in histomorphometric measurements of total bone, cortical bone, and cancellous bone volume was noted between the hip fracture patients and population 2. There was no difference noted when the intertrochanteric and femoral neck fracture patients were compared. No evidence of osteomalacia was noted in any group.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)