Vertebral Fractures and Mortality in Older Women

Results:Atbaseline,1915women(20.0%)werediagnosed as having vertebral fractures. Compared with women who did not have a vertebral fracture, women with 1 or more fractureshada1.23-foldgreaterage-adjustedmortality rate (95% confidence interval, 1.10-1.37). Mortality rose with greater numbers of vertebral fractures, from 19 per 1000 woman-years in women with no fractures to 44 per 1000 woman-years in thosewith5ormore fractures (P for trend, ,.001). Inparticular,vertebral fractureswererelated to the riskofsubsequentcancer(hazardratio,1.4;95%confidence interval, 1.1-1.7) and pulmonary death (hazard ratio, 2.1; 95% confidence interval, 1.4-3.0). In the subset of women who underwent thoracic curvature measurements, severe kyphosis was also related to pulmonary deaths (hazard ratio, 2.6; 95% confidence interval, 1.3-5.1).