Kidney disease raises hip fracture risk in women

NEW YORK, Feb 3 (Reuters) Elderly women with moderate kidney dysfunction are considerably more likely to experience hip fracture than those without impaired kidneys, researchers report in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

If these findings are confirmed by other studies, Dr Kristine E Ensrud told Reuters Health, doctors should evaluate kidney function when they determine the risk of hip fracture in older women.

Ensrud of the VA Medical Center, Minneapolis, and colleagues note in their paper that an increased rate of hip fractures has been reported in patients with end-stage kidney disease, but the effect of less severe kidney disease on fracture risk is uncertain.

To investigate further, the researchers studied a group of community-based women 65 years or older who were taking part in an osteoporotic bone fracture study.

The team compared kidney function in 149 women who had hip fractures and 150 women who had vertebral fractures with that of 396 randomly selected women without broken bones.

Mildly and moderately impaired kidney function increased the risk of hip fracture by more than 50 per cent and more than 100 per cent, respectively. However, kidney function did not have an effect on vertebral fractures.

Reuters MQA DB1058