Risk assessments for osteoporotic fracture and refracture

Osteoporosis is a metabolic bone disease characterized by decreased bone mass and degenerative changes in the microstructure of bone tissue, leading to increased bone brittleness and fracture risk. Bone fracture after osteoporosis is the most common and serious complication, which often leads to serious consequences in cases of inadequate prevention and late diagnosis. Therefore, more attention should be paid to prevention of osteoporosis and risk assessment of fracture and refracture after osteoporosis. This paper reviews the research progress in risk assessment of fracture and refracture after osteoporosis from the aspects of imaging, clinical manifestations and laboratory examination indexes. In recent years, the imaging methods have developed from dual-energy X-ray absorption, trabecular bone scoring and CT to high resolution peripheral quantitative CT; concern for their clinical manifestations has developed from independent risk factors to fracture risk assessment tools; the laboratory tests have developed from bone turnover markers and serotonin to microRNA. Although these developments have consistently increased the sensitivity of risk assessment for fracture and refracture after osteoporosis, problems still exist and need to be resolved. Key words: Osteoporotic fractures; Risk assessment; Review; Refracture