Five-year risk of fracture and subsequent fractures among adults with cerebral palsy.

BACKGROUND

Epidemiologic evidence documenting the incidence of fracture and subsequent fractures among adults with cerebral palsy (CP) is lacking, which could inform fracture prevention efforts. The objective was to characterize the 5-year rate of initial and subsequent fragility fractures among adults with CP.

METHODS

This retrospective cohort study used Medicare claims from 01/01/2008-12/31/2019 from adults ≥18 years old with CP ( = 44,239) and elderly ≥65 years old without CP ( = 2,176,463) as a comparison. The incidence rate (IR), IR ratio (IRR), and site distribution were estimated for the initial and subsequent fragility fractures over 5-years by sex and age.

RESULTS

The IR of fragility fracture at any site over the 5-year follow-up was similar for 18-30-year-old men with CP (IR = 5.2; 95%CI = 4.4-5.9) and 30-34-year-old women with CP (IR = 6.3; 95%CI = 5.3-7.2) compared to the same sex youngest-old (65-74 years old) without CP (IRR = 1.09 and 0.94, respectively, both  > 0.05), and increased with older age for those with CP. The number of fragility fractures and IR of subsequent fragility fractures was similar for young men and middle-aged women with CP compared to elderly without CP, and increased with older age for those with CP. The proportion of fragility fracture at the tibia/fibula decreased while the vertebral column and multiple simultaneous sites (most involved hip/lower extremities) increased with older age.

CONCLUSION

Young and middle-aged adults with CP had similar-to-worse initial and subsequent fragility fracture profiles compared to the general elderly population- a well characterized group for bone fragility. Findings emphasize the need for fracture prevention efforts at younger ages for CP, possibly by ~5 decades younger.