[Bone health in Geneva retirees].

GERICO (Geneva Retirees Cohort) is a cohort of 953 men and women recruited at the age of 65 in Canton of Geneva, Switzerland, providing a picture of bone health at retirement time. Despite few comorbidities and good nutritional intake and vitamin D status, 30% of subjects have a history of vertebral or clinical fracture after the age of 45, 20% of women and 11% of men have osteoporosis assessed by DXA. 22% have a 10-year probability of a major osteoporotic fracture assessed by FRAX greater than 15%, -i.

Additive Genetic Effects on Circulating Periostin Contribute to the Heritability of Bone Microstructure.

Context: Genetic factors account for 60-80% of the areal bone mineral density (aBMD) variance, whereas the heritability of bone microstructure is not clearly established. aBMD and microstructure are under the control of osteocytes, which regulate bone formation through the expression of molecules such as sclerostin (SOST) and periostin (POSTN).

Objective: We hypothesized that additive genetic effects contribute to serum levels of SOST and POSTN and thereby to the individual variance of bone microstructure.

Prior ankle fractures in postmenopausal women are associated with low areal bone mineral density and bone microstructure alterations.

Unlabelled: In a cross-sectional analysis in postmenopausal women, prior ankle fractures were associated with lower areal bone mineral density (BMD) and trabecular bone alterations compared to no fracture history. Compared to women with forearm fractures, microstructure alterations were of lower magnitude. These data suggest that ankle fractures are another manifestation of bone fragility.

Microstructural alterations of trabecular and cortical bone in long-term HIV-infected elderly men on successful antiretroviral therapy.

Objective: Progress in antiretroviral therapy (ART) has resulted in an almost normal life expectancy for HIV-infected individuals, but an increased risk of fragility fractures has been identified. We investigated the influence of long-term HIV infection on successful ART on bone microstructure in elderly men.

Design: A cross-sectional, case–control study.

Association of circulating sclerostin with bone mineral mass, microstructure, and turnover biochemical markers in healthy elderly men and women.

Context: Sclerostin inhibits bone formation and is involved in the bone response to mechanical loading, but the role and significance of circulating sclerostin are poorly understood.

Objective: We assessed the association between serum sclerostin and calcitropic hormones, bone turnover marker levels, bone mineral content/density, and microstructure using 3 different immunoassays.

Design, Setting, And Participants: In a cross-sectional study, serum sclerostin was measured in a cohort of 187 healthy subjects (98 women; 89 men) aged 65 ± 1 (±SD) years.

Defining risk thresholds for a 10-year probability of hip fracture model that combines clinical risk factors and quantitative ultrasound: results using the EPISEM cohort.

Using a large prospective cohort of over 12,000 women, we determined 2 thresholds (high risk and low risk of hip fracture) to use in a 10-yr hip fracture probability model that we had previously described, a model combining the heel stiffness index measured by quantitative ultrasound (QUS) and a set of easily determined clinical risk factors (CRFs). The model identified a higher percentage of women with fractures as high risk than a previously reported risk score that combined QUS and CRF. In addition, it categorized women in a way that was quite consistent with the categorization that occurred using dual X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) and the World Health Organization (WHO) classification system; the 2 methods identified similar percentages of women with and without fractures in each of their 3 categories, but the 2 identified only in part the same women.

Assessment of the 10-year probability of osteoporotic hip fracture combining clinical risk factors and heel bone ultrasound: the EPISEM prospective cohort of 12,958 elderly women.

This study aimed to develop a hip screening tool that combines relevant clinical risk factors (CRFs) and quantitative ultrasound (QUS) at the heel to determine the 10-yr probability of hip fractures in elderly women. The EPISEM database, comprised of approximately 13,000 women 70 yr of age, was derived from two population-based white European cohorts in France and Switzerland. All women had baseline data on CRFs and a baseline measurement of the stiffness index (SI) derived from QUS at the heel.

Combining clinical factors and quantitative ultrasound improves the detection of women both at low and high risk for hip fracture.

Unlabelled: We hypothesized that combining clinical risk factors (CRF) with the heel stiffness index (SI) measured via quantitative ultrasound (QUS) would improve the detection of women both at low and high risk for hip fracture. Categorizing women by risk score improved the specificity of detection to 42.4%, versus 33.

Prediction and discrimination of osteoporotic hip fracture in postmenopausal women.

Osteoporotic hip fractures increase dramatically with age and are responsible for considerable morbidity and mortality. Several treatments to prevent the occurrence of hip fracture have been validated in large randomized trials and the current challenge is to improve the identification of individuals at high risk of fracture who would benefit from therapeutic or preventive intervention. We have performed an exhaustive literature review on hip fracture predictors, focusing primarily on clinical risk factors, dual X-ray absorptiometry (DXA), quantitative ultrasound, and bone markers.

Does follow-up duration influence the ultrasound and DXA prediction of hip fracture? The EPIDOS prospective study.

While the potential of quantitative ultrasound (QUS) in the management of osteoporosis has been accepted, its interaction with follow-up time has never been investigated. The aim of our study is to prospectively evaluate the influence of follow-up time on the prediction of hip fracture by ultrasound parameters in the elderly as compared to bone mineral density (BMD) and to establish a long-term fracture prediction model. In the multicenter prospective study EPIDOS, 5898 Caucasian healthy women, aged 75 and over, had femoral dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) and heel ultrasound measurements at baseline.