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IOF teaching tool to help health professionals identify vertebral fractures
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The International Osteoporosis Foundation introduced a teaching tool specifically designed to help physicians learn more about the detection and understanding of osteoporotic vertebral fractures.
The Vertebral Fracture Initiative, available at the International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF) website, includes teaching slides that can be inserted into presentations and are enhanced by multi-language executive summaries and resource documents, according to a IOF press release. The resource documents contain updated information about vertebral fractures, as well as commentaries.
“Currently, only about 40% of older women with spinal fractures visible on X-ray are tested for osteoporosis,” Mary Bouxsein, PhD, one of the lead authors of the initiative, stated in the release. “The figure is often lower in men. Without treatment, many of these people will go on to suffer a cascade of osteoporotic fractures that can result in long-term physical impairment.”
Radiographic diagnosis, the release noted, is considered the best way to identify and confirm the presence of vertebral fractures in clinical practice. Alternatively, DXA-based vertebral fracture assessment — reported to be nearly as accurate as radiographs in detecting fractured vertebra — can be performed concurrently with DXA-BMD to diagnose osteoporosis.
“We hope this tool will encourage and assist radiologists and clinicians to accurately diagnose and correctly report fractures,” Harry K. Genant, MD, stated in the release. “Vertebral fractures should be clearly reported as ‘fractured’ in the medical reports to avoid ambiguity caused by other terminology. This will help ensure that patients receive effective treatment and thereby prevent subsequent fractures.”
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