Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Fracture Risk Calculator


How likely is it for you to sustain a fracture in the next 10 years? A new algorithm tool has been developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) to help assess your risk of fractures and osteoporosis.
Osteoporosis is a deterioration of bone mass (porous bone) which leads to fractures of wrist, hip and spine. It is usually measured by a radiological test called the bone-mineral density test. Treatment may be indicated depending on the amount of bone loss detected.
The new tool called the "FRAX" calculator may be used with or without the results of a bone-mineral density test. The model incorporates other clinical criteria such as age, sex, body-mass index, and seven other risk factors to predict the 10 year risk of fractures. Investigators analyzed data from multiple large international population-based studies to develop this statistical model which should add to the accuracy of the bone-mineral density test and better guide the use of medications used for prevention of fractures.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi..
Hope this new invention would be available very soon around the world and not classified as a deluxe and expensive tools.

cheers..

data said...

You may try another calculator from Australia which is simpler than the FRAX calculator. The Australian's model is at:

www.fractureriskcalculator.com

Dr. Taraneh Razavi said...

Thanks Nguyen. It's good to know about this. The more tools the better. It's interesting that the Ausrtalian model starts the age range at 60.

Anonymous said...

one more useful info for me..thanx

data said...

Dear Dr Razavi,

Our prognostic model was developed from the Dubbo Osteoporosis Epidemiology Study, which included men and women aged 60+ yrs (as in 1989). That is why the estimates are applicable to men and women aged 60+. The men and women have been followed since 1989 till 2007, and know exactly who has a fracture because we did examine X-ray report.

We have preliminarily validated our model in an independent population, and the performance was very good, with the area under the ROC curve (AUC) being ~0.76. In this independent population, the FRAX model did not peform well, particularly for men, with the AUC being 0.53. We will publish this data soon.

We think fall is an important factor for fracture risk assessment, but this factor was not considered in the FRAX algorithm.

I appreciate your comments and feedback on our model.