The architecture of cancellous and cortical bone in femoral neck fracture.

The architecture of cancellous bone as well as quantity and quality is considered important in maintaining mechanical integrity. To determine whether abnormalities of architecture occur in femoral neck fracture we measured trabecular width and number in iliac crest bone biopsies of 68 women with femoral fracture and compared them with data from a postmortem series of age-matched women without known bone disease. Cortical thickness was measured in 27 of the fracture patients and 17 controls. After exclusion of ten biopsies with increased osteoid surface no significant difference was seen in mean trabecular width or number between fracture patients and subjects without fracture. Both thinning of trabeculae and loss of trabeculae contributed to low bone volume in femoral fracture patients. Direct measurements of trabecular number correlated with calculated mean trabecular plate density (P less than 0.001), and the percentage of trabeculae at any one of a range of trabecular widths in the fracture biopsies was similar to that in non-fracture subjects. No difference was seen in the architecture of cancellous bone with age, fracture trauma or between subcapital and intertrochanteric fracture in fracture subjects. Cortical thickness, however, was related to age in both fracture and control subjects (P less than 0.05). There was no difference in cortical thickness between age-matched fracture and control subjects. Patients with intertrochanteric fracture had lower cortical thickness (P less than 0.02) and were older (P less than 0.01) than patients with subcapital fracture.