This was caused by severe scoliosis (n = 17), Torin 1 chemical structure inability to lay supine because of clinical condition (n = 23), severe adiposity (n = 5), and miscellaneous reasons (n = 31). In the remaining 2,424 patients, VFA was considered reliable. Image quality was subjectively scored as “good” in 2097 (87%), “moderate”

in 294 (12%), and “poor” in 33 patients (1%), and was based on assessment of the whole image. Despite “poor” or “moderate” VFA image quality results in those patients were considered sufficiently reliable to allow analysis. The levels that were adequately visualized by VFA were from vertebra L4 up through vertebra T4 in 1,991 (82%) patients,

from L4 through T5 in 2,247 (93%), and from L4 through T6 in 2,402 (99%). In total, around 30,000 vertebral bodies were analyzed. Vertebral Fracture Assessment results 17-AAG supplier VFA demonstrated a vertebral fracture in 541 (22%) of the patients. An example is presented in Fig. 1. These 541 patients together had 954 vertebral fractures, which amounts to a mean of 1.8 selleck kinase inhibitor fractures per patient with a fracture. In 375 patients (69% of those with a fracture, or 16% of the whole cohort), these fractures were not demonstrated earlier and were unknown according to the patient. Fig. 1 Example of a VFA study result with left the image after placing marker points, upper right the Genant classification and lower a table with the percentages of deformity. In this patient, one moderate vertebral fracture was detected: wedge shaped in L1 The distribution of the fractures over the individual vertebral levels showed the well-known dual-peak distribution with a peak

at T7 (119 fractures, 13% of total) and at T12 (169 fractures, 18% of total) (Fig. 2). The severity of the fractures was “mild” in 458 (48% of all fractures), “moderate” in 295 (31%), and “severe” in 201 (21%). Vertebral fractures were wedge shaped in 79% (n = 759), biconcave in 19% (n = 178) see more and “crush” in 2% (n = 17). Mild fractures were often accompanied by moderate or severe fractures, and on a per patient analysis 219 patients (9% of all patients) had mild fractures only. Fig. 2 Frequency distribution of vertebral fractures assessed with VFA As there has been controversy in the definition of mild fractures we also analyzed the data for moderate and severe fractures only, after excluding mild fractures. The prevalence of moderate or severe vertebral fractures was 322 (13%) in this cohort, 180 (56%) were unknown.

No related posts.