Bone Mineral Density at Lumbar Spine and Femur. An Epidemiological Study in the Athens Metropolitan Area, Greece

We aimed at determining the prevalence of osteoporosis and osteopenia in an urban population. Materials and Methods: DXA measurements were done at the lumbar spine (4914 females, aged 50 to 93 years and 111 males, aged 50-89) and at the femur (2943 females, aged 50-95 and 105 males, aged 51-92). Bone mineral density (BMD) and corresponding T-scores were analysed using multivariate regression models. Results: In females, the prevalence rate of osteo-porosis was 19.56% (95% confidence interval (CI):18.46/20.69) at the lumbar spine and of os-teopenia 41.68% (95% CI: 40.29/43.07). The cor-responding numbers in males were 16.22 % (95% CI: 9.90/24.41) and 33.33% (95% CI: 24.67/42.91). In females osteoporosis rate at the femur was 18.99% (95% CI: 17.59/20.46) for the neck and 2.0% (95% CI: 1.53/2.58) for the tronchater, whe-reas the osteopenic rates were 54.57% (95% CI: 52.75/56.38) and 32.38% (95% CI:30.69/34.11) re-spectively. In males, osteoporosis rate at the fe-mur was 38.10% (95% CI: 28.79/48.09) for the neck and 13.33% (95% CI: 7.49/21.36) for the tron-chater, whereas the corresponding osteopenic rates were 46.67% (95% CI: 36.87/56.66) and 41.90% (95% CI: 32.34/51.93). A polynominal cu-bic model performed for age showed the steepest decline at the age of 55 years for the spine BMD (-0.973% change, 95% CI -1.031/-0.915) and at the age of 64 years for the femur BMD (-0.726% change, 95% CI -0.793/-0.658). Conclusion: Sensitive interventions and strate-gies for prevention of osteoporosis in urban populations need to be designed and imple-mentted.