Bone loss in young hypoestrogenic women due to primary ovarian failure: spinal quantitative computed tomography.

Vertebral bone mineral density was investigated in 22 young (29.3 +/- 1 years) women with primary ovarian failure, attending for infertility. The lumbar spine was studied, using a preprocessing dual-energy quantitative computed tomography technique and assessing vertebral bone mineral density from the reconstructed 125-kV image. Previously untreated women had significantly (P less than 0.001) lower values than a group of age-matched healthy controls, while the difference between those women having received estrogen therapy and the same controls was not significant. Sixteen patients were restudied after 6 to 21 months of estrogen therapy, part of a regimen intended to prepare the endometrium for oocyte donation, and vertebral bone mineral density increased in 12 of them. The authors conclude that primary ovarian failure is a cause for bone loss in these young women and that estrogen therapy is effective.