Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Vertebral fractures are the most common type of osteoporotic fractures. Prevalence of osteoporosis and osteoporotic vertebral fractures were not addressed and studied previously in the UAE. This study aims to describe for the first time the demographic and morphological characteristics of patients with fragility vertebral fractures in the UAE.

Methods: This is a retrospective medical records review of patients with low-trauma vertebral fractures from two tertiary centers during 2011–2016. Patients’ gender, age at the time of fracture, nationality, BMI and the anatomical location of fracture were described.

Results: A total of 143 subjects were diagnosed with low-trauma vertebral fractures in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi during 2011–2016. Of these, 98 were women (68.5%) and 45 were men (31.5%). The overall mean age at diagnosis was 62.5. Almost half of the patients were younger than 65 years. Around 60% of the patients were UAE nationals. 51 (36.7%) patients were obese with a mean BMI of 35.3 kg/m². Women with vertebral fractures had statistically significant higher mean BMI compared to men (P = 0.041). Nearly 40% of men had normal BMI compared to 20% of the female patients. Most of the fractures were compression fractures (77.6%) and were located in the thoracolumbar transition region.

Conclusion: Patients with vertebral fractures were predominantly females. Overweight and obesity were more prevalent specially in female patients. Male patients had lower BMI compared to females.

Keywords: Low–trauma, osteoporosis, vertebral fracture, body mass index, fragility fracture.