title: Wrist bone mineral density utility in diagnosing hip osteoporosis in postmenopausal women.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Osteoporosis is a common bone disease that increases with age. Wrist bone mineral density (BMD) has significant correlation with other skeletal sites and it could be used as a diagnostic method for osteoporosis. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the role of wrist BMD in diagnosing osteoporosis in postmenopausal women.
  
  
  METHODS
  In this cross-sectional study, 99 postmenopausal women with mean age of 57 ± 6.9 (range 50-76) years were evaluated. BMD of nondominant wrist, lumbar spine (L2-L4) and femur bone using a dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) device as well as lateral lumbosacral X-ray for degenerative joint disease (DJD) evaluation were measured. Mean T-score of wrist was lower than hip and lumbar area.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Osteopenia and osteoporosis were observed in 40.4% and 59.6% in the wrist, 38.4% and 24.2% in the hip and 36.4% and 49.5% in lumbar-spine BMD measurements, respectively. There was positive correlation between wrist BMD with hip BMD (r= 0.468,p< 0.001) and lumbar BMD (r= 0.322,p= 0.001). DJD due to lumbosacral X-ray was reported in 84 cases (84.8%) including mild DJD in 45 (53.5%), moderate DJD in 33 (39.3%) and severe DJD in 6 (7.2%).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our results showed that wrist BMD has better accuracy than lumbar BMD in diagnosing osteoporosis in postmenopausal women.
authors.affiliation: Physical medicine and rehabilitation Research Center, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran.
authors.forename: Bina
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Eftekhar-Sadat
authors.affiliation: Radiology department, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran.
authors.forename: Mostafa
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ghavami
authors.affiliation: Physical medicine and rehabilitation Research Center, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran.
authors.forename: Vahideh
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Toopchizadeh
authors.affiliation: Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Department, Medical Center of Children, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Keshavarz Bolv., Dr Gharib Avenue, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Masood
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ghahvechi Akbari
keywords: dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry; menopause; osteoporosis; wrist joint