Femoral trabecular-pattern index for evaluation of spinal osteoporosis.

Abstract

A simple and universally applicable index based on the roentgenographic pattern of trabecular bone in the upper end of the femur was used to evaluate bone loss in 316 randomly selected control patients with no history of metabolic bone disease and 102 patients with clinically symptomatic osteoporosis. In control patients there was a significant loss of trabecular bone structure with increasing age; however, a large proportion of them maintained essentially normal values through the seventh and eighth decades of life. Trabecular bone loss was greater in women than in men but significantly so only after age 50 years. A point on the index could be selected that separated patients of similar ages with from those without vertebral compression fractures, with an overlap of only 10.7%. Of the 33 control patients who had index values below this point, 11 were found to have asymptomatic vertebral compression fractures.