Arthritis Patients’ Risk of Fracture Overestimated

People with rheumatoid arthritis are thought to be liable to break bones as a result of bone-thinning osteoporosis, but that may not be generally true, research would suggest. With the exception of hip fractures, women with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) do not have substantially more non-spinal fractures than women without RA, researchers from Norway report in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases. Dr. Ragnhild Orstavik, of Diakonhjemmet Hospital in Oslo and colleagues compared the rate of self-reported fractures (excluding vertebrae) in 249 women with RA and equal number of matched controls. In both groups, the subjects were about 63 years old and about the same weight. Overall, fifty-three RA patients (21 percent) reported a total of 67 fractures while fifty control subjects (20 percent) reported 60 fractures. “The similarity between the two groups in the number of subjects who reported a previous fracture…was striking,” the team writes. This was totally “unexpected,” Orstavik told Reuters Health, “as RA patients are known to have an increased frequency of osteoporosis, which was also the case in this study.” They were also surprised to find no increase in wrist fractures in patients with RA compared with controls (23 versus 28), “fractures that are common in this age and sex group, and considered one of the classic osteoporotic fractures,” Orstavik explained. However, because of the small number of subjects in this study, no strong conclusions can be drawn about individual fracture types, except hip fractures, the team reports. Confirming prior studies, hip fractures occurred significantly more often in RA patients than controls (10 versus 2). SOURCE: Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, February 2004.

People with rheumatoid arthritis are thought to be liable to break bones as a result of bone-thinning osteoporosis, but that may not be generally true, research would suggest.With the exception of hip fractures, women with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) do not have substantially more non-spinal fractures than women without RA, researchers from Norway report in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases. Dr. Ragnhild Orstavik, of Diakonhjemmet Hospital in Oslo and colleagues compared the rate of self-reported fractures (excluding vertebrae) in 249 women with RA and equal number of matched controls. In both groups, the subjects were about 63 years old and about the same weight. Overall, fifty-three RA patients (21 percent) reported a total of 67 fractures while fifty control subjects (20 percent) reported 60 fractures. “The similarity between the two groups in the number of subjects who reported a previous fracture…was striking,” the team writes. This was totally “unexpected,” Orstavik told Reuters Health, “as RA patients are known to have an increased frequency of osteoporosis, which was also the case in this study.” They were also surprised to find no increase in wrist fractures in patients with RA compared with controls (23 versus 28), “fractures that are common in this age and sex group, and considered one of the classic osteoporotic fractures,” Orstavik explained. However, because of the small number of subjects in this study, no strong conclusions can be drawn about individual fracture types, except hip fractures, the team reports. Confirming prior studies, hip fractures occurred significantly more often in RA patients than controls (10 versus 2). (Source: Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, Reuters Health, Feb 2004.)