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Researchers assess osteoporotic risk in women without knowledge of patient’s race, ethnicity
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Investigators at University of California, Los Angeles, have developed a new method to assess the risks of osteoporosis and fracture in women using bone mineral density measures with body size and bone size to create composite bone strength indices without racial or ethnic background information.
According to the research, published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, the method is as effective as those that combine bone mineral density (BMD) measures and with data for race and ethnicity, and may be beneficial for women of mixed racial or ethnic backgrounds.
“All the current ways of determining your risk for fractures requires knowing your race and ethnicity correctly, and they ignore the fact that racial and ethnic groups are not homogenous,” Arun Karlamangla, MD, professor of medicine and geriatrician at the David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California, Los Angeles, stated in a university press release. “It also flies in the face of the current reality in Southern California, where so many people are of mixed ethnicity.”
Karlamangla and colleagues used the method to analyze 1,940 women in the United States during a 10-year period, according to the study abstract. The women included in the study were of Caucasian, African-American, Chinese and Japanese heritage and between the ages of 42 years and 53 years.
“Composite strength indices of the femoral neck can predict fracture risk without race/ethnicity information as accurately as BMD does in combination with race/ethnicity information and, therefore, would allow risk prediction in people of mixed race/ethnicity and in groups without a BMD reference database,” the authors wrote in their abstract.
Reference:
Ishii S. Fracture risk assessment without race/ethnicity information. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2012;doi:10.1210/jc.2012-1997.
Disclosure: The study was supported by grants from the National Institute on Aging, Veterans Affairs Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System Geriatric Research, Education and Clinical Center and Veterans Affairs Advanced Geriatrics Fellowship.
