Fracture trends in Denmark from 1997 to 2021.

UNLABELLED: We investigated fracture trends in adults in Denmark between 1997 and 2021. Major osteoporotic fracture incidence rates (IRs) decreased in both women and men. Hip fracture IRs decreased in women and men. However, there was an increase in vertebral fracture IRs which should be further investigated.

PURPOSE: As population characteristics change over time, fracture incidence rates are likely to change as well. However, to date, no studies have reported the trends in sex- and fracture site-specific IRs using recent data from Denmark. Our aim was to investigate changes in fracture IRs in Denmark between 1997 and 2021.

METHODS

We identified adults with a fracture in 1997-2021 in the Danish National Patient Register. Annual age-standardized fracture IRs per 10,000 person-years (PY) with 95% confidence intervals were calculated. Poisson regression was used to test the significance of changes over time in fracture IRs.

RESULTS

We identified 1,478,808 individuals with fractures. The population had a median age of 55 years and consisted of 54% women. Major osteoporotic fracture IRs in women decreased from 135.8 to 116.9 per 10,000 PY from 1997 to 2021, and decreased in men from 62.3 to 57.2 per 10,000 PY. Hip fracture IRs decreased from 41.5 in 1997 to 23.3 in 2021 for women and from 19.6 to 13.3 for men. Vertebral fracture IRs increased from 8.6 and 7.8 in 1997, to 15.2 and 11.9 in 2021 for women and men respectively. Humerus and forearm fracture IRs decreased slightly in women and men.

CONCLUSIONS

Between 1997 and 2021 hip fracture IRs decreased, while vertebral fracture IRs increased. The increased vertebral fracture IRs might be attributed to an increased detection rate. Although major osteoporotic fracture IRs decreased more in women than in men, women still have higher IRs of hip, humerus, and forearm fractures than men.