Morphological profile of atypical femoral fractures: age-related changes to the cross-sectional geometry of the diaphysis

DOI IR IR (HANDLE) HANDLE Web Site View 2 Remaining Hide 6 Citations 39 References

Bibliographic Information

Published
2019-07-29
Resource Type
journal article
Rights Information
  • c 2019 Anatomical Society. This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Journal of Anatomy, 235(5), pp.892-902; 2019, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/joa.13060. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions.
DOI
  • 10.1111/joa.13060
Publisher
Anatomical Society

Search this article

Description

The use of bisphosphonates for osteoporosis patients has markedly decreased the incidence of femoral neck or trochanteric fractures. However, anti-osteoporosis drugs have been reported to increase the incidence of atypical femoral fractures, which involve stress fractures in the subtrochanteric region or the proximal diaphysis. In this study, the morphological characteristics of the cortical bone in human femoral diaphysis samples were analyzed from individuals who lived before bisphosphonate drugs were available in Japan. A total of 90 right femoral bones were arbitrarily selected (46 males and 44 females) from modern Japanese skeletal specimens. Full-length images of these femurs were acquired using a computed tomography scanner. An image processing method for binarization was used to calculate the threshold values of individual bones for determining their contours. The range between the lower end of the lesser trochanter and the adductor tubercle of each femur was divided at regular intervals to obtain 10 planes. The mean value of cortical bone thickness, periosteal border length, and the cortical cross-sectional area was evaluated for all planes. Moreover, the ratio of the area of the cortical bone to the total area of cross-section at the mid-diaphysis was calculated. A comparison between males and females demonstrated that most females had lower cortical bone area ratios at the mid-diaphysis. The femoral outer shape did not differ markedly according to age or sex; however, substantial individual differences were observed in the shape of the inner surface of the cortical bone. The cortical bone thickness and the cross-sectional area decreased with age in the femoral diaphysis; furthermore, in females, the decrease was higher for the former than for the latter. This may be due to a compensatory increase in the circumference of the femoral diaphysis. In addition, in about half of the subjects there was a discrepancy between the region with maximal value of the cortical bone thickness and that of the total cross-sectional area. Biological responses to mechanical stresses to the femoral diaphysis are thought not to be uniform. Bisphosphonates inhibit bone resorption and may promote non-physiological bone remodeling. Thus, a nonhomogeneous decrease in cortical thickness may be related to the fracture occurrence in the femoral diaphysis in some cases. Thus, long-term administration of bisphosphonates in patients with morphological vulnerability in the femoral cortical bones may increase the occurrence of atypical femoral fractures.

Journal

Citations (6)*help

See more

References(39)*help

See more

Related Projects

See more

Keywords

Details 詳細情報について

Report a problem

Back to top