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Distal radius bone microarchitecture: what are the differences between age 25 and old age?

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Abstract

Summary

This study reported that the transitional zones in older adults were enlarged at the expense of the compact-appearing cortex with a greater porosity in all cortical sub-compartments. The magnitude of differences in areal and volumetric bone mineral density (aBMD, vBMD) between older and younger groups was similar.

Introduction

Aging is strongly associated with bone loss, but little is known about magnitudes of differences in bone microarchitectures, aBMD, and vBMD from peak bone mass (PBM) to senescence. We aimed to describe differences in aBMD, vBMD, and bone microarchitecture parameters at the distal radius between older and young adults.

Methods

We compared 201 participants, aged 62–89 years (female 47%) and 196 participants, aged 24–28 years (female 38%). Bone microarchitecture parameters at distal radius were measured using high-resolution peripheral computed tomography (HRpQCT). aBMD was measured using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA). Unpaired t tests and chi-square tests were used to compare differences in means and proportions as appropriate.

Results

Older adults had thinner compact-appearing cortices with larger (cross-sectional area: outer 30.96 mm2 vs. 28.38 mm2, inner 36.34 mm2 vs. 32.93 mm2) and thicker (outer 0.57 mm vs. 0.54 mm, inner 0.71 mm vs. 0.65 mm) transitional zones compared with young adults (all p < 0.05). Cortical porosity was modestly higher in older adults than in young adults (54% vs. 49%, p < 0.001). The magnitude of the difference in hip aBMD between older and young adults was slightly lower than of total radial vBMD (− 0.51 SD vs. − 0.78 SD).

Conclusion

Compared with young adults at the time of PBM, the transitional zones in older adults were enlarged at the expense of the compact-appearing cortex with a greater porosity in all cortical sub-compartments. The similar SD differences in aBMD and vBMD between older and younger groups suggest that the differences in bone area are not leading to major artefactual change in aBMD.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the participants who made this study possible, and we gratefully acknowledge the role of TasOAC staff and volunteers in collecting the data.

Funding

This work was supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council (APP1045408).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Menzies Institute for Medical Research, University of Tasmania, 17 Liverpool Street, Hobart, Tasmania, 7000, Australia

    Canchen Ma, Feng Pan, Yi Yang, Laura Laslett, Kathryn Squibb, Tania Winzenberg & Graeme Jones

  2. Department of Medicine, School of Clinical Sciences, Monash Health, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

    Roger Zebaze

  3. Departments of Medicine and Endocrinology, Austin Health, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia

    Roger Zebaze

Authors
  1. Canchen Ma
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  2. Feng Pan
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  3. Yi Yang
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  8. Graeme Jones
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Graeme Jones.

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Conflicts of interest

Canchen Ma, Feng Pan, Yi Yang, Laura Laslett, Kathryn Squibb, Tania Winzenberg and Graeme Jones declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Roger Zebaze declares that he has no conflict of interest; he is a director of StraxCorp Pty Ltd.

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Ma, C., Pan, F., Yang, Y. et al. Distal radius bone microarchitecture: what are the differences between age 25 and old age?. Arch Osteoporos 15, 16 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11657-020-0696-9

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