Prevalence of discordance between different skeletal sites in patients' referred to the BMD center of Shariati hospital, 1379-1382

discordance is defined as having a BMD result that is in the osteoporotic range at one site
while being normal or osteopenic at the other sites (according to the WHO criteria). This study was
conducted to assess Prevalence of discordance between different skeletal sites in patients' referred
to the BMD center of Shariati hospital during 1379-1382.
A cross sectional study was carried out on 4229 patients referring to the BMD center of Shariati
hospital during 3 years. Data including demographic information, risk factors, physical
examination (height and weight) was collected. Dual- energy X-ray absorptiometry was performed
on all cases. BMD results were defined according to the WHO diagnostic criteria.
Data was collected from 4229 individuals (91.8% female and 8.2% male) with a mean age of
53.44±11 years. Major discordance, minor discordance and concordance were seen in 2.7, 38.9
and 58.3% of the study population respectively.
There was no association between age and incidence of discordance in the BMD results
(P=0.009) yet the mean age grew along with the rate of discordance (P<0.001).
Discordance was associated with menopause (P<0.001) and also with the number of years past
menopause (P<0.001).
The high prevalence of discordance may lead to problems in clarifying the BMD results, thus
criticizing the validity of this method therefore further study on more reliable densitometry criteria
should be carried out. In all prospective studies are required in order to determine the importance
of discordance in the prognosis and future risk of fracture in patients.