Bone mineral density and vitamin D status in female and male patients with osteoarthritis of the knee or hip.

OBJECTIVE

Osteoporosis (OP), osteoarthritis (OA) and vitamin D deficiency are age-related disorders. We investigated the association between bone mineral density (BMD), vitamin D and OA in patients undergoing total hip or knee replacements.

METHOD: In total, 82 women and 35 men with mean ages of 70 and 68 years, respectively, were recruited for the study. The BMD of the lumbar spine and the proximal femur were measured by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry. The vitamin D status was assessed by 25(OH)D levels, with a cut-off of <or=30 ng x ml(-1).

RESULTS

In total, 84.7% of the patients had a vitamin D deficiency; 20% of the men had a T-score below -2.5; 23.2% of the women were affected by OP. Furthermore, 37.1 and 42.7% of the male and female patients, respectively, had osteopenia. We concluded that OP and osteopenia were not due to immobility.

CONCLUSION

The average age, rather than the frequency of OP, in cases with OA of the hip or knee differed from the general population. The incidence of low BMD in the male cohort was notably higher than expected. We detected a high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency, independent of the BMD.