Biomechanical Computed Tomography Captures Older Men at High Risk of Hip Fracture Despite Low Fracture Risk Calculation by FRAX
Authors: Fu Polly , Chiang Janet , Keaveny Tony M , Bikle Daniel D 
Published: May 2021

Background: Biomechanical computed tomography (BCT) can be applied to hip-containing CT scans to estimate femoral bone strength using finite-element analysis and to measure DXA-equivalent femoral neck (FN) BMD. Current guidelines recommend osteoporosis pharmacotherapy initiation in men with BMD T-score ≤ -2.5 or T-score between -1.0 and -2.5 with 10-year hip fracture risk ≥ 3% by FRAX.1 Estimated femoral strength by BCT is associated with incident hip fractures in men, independent of BMD,2 and can be used in conjunction with clinical risk factors for consideration of therapy initiation per the International Society of Clinical Dosimetry.3

Aim: To determine how many men are at increased risk of fractures with fragile bone strength (≤ 3500N) despite normal-to-low BMD (T-score &gt; -2.5) and low 10-year hip fracture risk (&lt; 3%).

Methods: 625 men age ≥ 65 with hip-containing CT scans were randomly selected for BCT analysis out of 4209 scans performed from 2017 to 2019 at a single academic hospital. Scans were excluded if an intact femur was not imaged. BCT was performed for 557 men after accounting for un-processable scans. Electronic health records were retrospectively reviewed by investigators blinded to BCT results. 10-year hip fracture risks were calculated by FRAX based on available clinical data and FN BMD T-score from BCT. Chi-squared and t-test were used to investigate differences in clinical parameters between men with and without fragile bone strength.

Results: The mean age was 77 (± 7.6 years), and 69% of men were white. Out of 102 men (18.3%) who met criteria for fragile bone strength by BCT, 42 (7.5%) had low FN BMD (T-score between -1.0 and -2.5) and 2 (0.4%) had normal FN BMD (T-score ≥ -1.0). The percentage of men with fragile bone strength and discrepant BMD increased with age (5.4% in age 65–74; 8.2% in age 75–84; 13.0% in age ≥ 85). The average 10-year hip fracture risk by FRAX of men with fragile bone strength was 6.5% (± 4.0%). However, 13 out of 44 men with normal-to-low BMD had 10-year hip fracture risks &lt; 3% despite fragile bone strength presence and did not meet recommendation for osteoporosis pharmacotherapy. Examining men with normal-to-low BMD (n=493), those with fragile bone strength tended to be older, have lower BMI, and of Hispanic ethnicity compared to those with normal-to-low bone strength (p&lt;0.05).

Conclusions: Our study showed that fragile bone strength is present in older men with normal-to-low BMD, and that inclusion of 10-year hip fracture risk by FRAX may capture some, but not all, men at increased risk of hip fractures. Skeletal fragility measured by BCT may serve as additional data to assist with clinical decision making for men with osteoporosis, though further prospective research is needed.

Reference: 1. Watts et al, J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2012 Jun;97(6):1802–22. 2. Adams et al, J Bone Miner Res 2018 Jul;33(7):1291–1301. 3. Shuhart et al, J Clin Densitom. 2019 Oct-Dec;22(4):453–471.