Incidence of osteoporotic fractures in elderly women and men in Finland during 2005-2006: a population-based study.
OBJECTIVE
Osteoporosis is a major health concern in elderly population. Low-trauma fractures offer one way of identifying these patients for treatment. Population-specific incidences of osteoporotic fractures are essential to validate tools for clinical decision making.


METHODS
To evaluate population-based osteoporotic fracture incidences in Central Finland, we performed a manual search of low-trauma fractures 2005-2006 from the records of all the local health-care organizations treating trauma patients. We identified low-trauma fracture patients from radiology reports from five health centers serving the inhabitants of nine municipalities and from the patient records of two hospitals in Central Finland. The manually collected data were then compared against data from the Finnish Health Care Register.


RESULTS
The crude incidence of all osteoporotic fractures in 2005-2006 in the population aged 50 years was 1254/100,000 person years: 694/100,000 person years in men and 1718/100,000 person years in women. Fracture numbers derived from register data were similar to those manually collected for hip and humerus fractures, but clearly smaller than those for wrist and ankle fractures.


CONCLUSIONS
Population-based low-trauma fracture incidences, reported here for Finland, constitute a basis for calibration of fracture risk evaluation tools (e.g. the World Health Organization fracture risk evaluation tool, FRAX). This study showed that register data underestimate the incidences of, in particular, distal radius and ankle fractures.
Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Endocrinology, Central Finland Central Hospital, Jyväskylä, Finland anna-mari.koski@ksshp.fi.
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AM
Koski
Health Centre of Jyväskylä Cooperation, Jyväskylä, Finland.
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A
Patala
Department of Radiology, Helsinki University Central Hospital, Helsinki, Finland.
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E
Patala
Service Systems Research Unit, National Institute for Health and Welfare, Helsinki, Finland Bone and Cartilage Research Unit, University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio, Finland Centre for Research Methods, Department of Social Research, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
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R
Sund
Fracture incidence; distal radius fracture; hip fracture; low-trauma fracture; male osteoporosis; osteoporosis; postmenopausal osteoporosis; proximal humerus fracture