Evaluation of the etiology of the etiology of the pathological fracture in patients admitted to Imam khomeini hospital in Urmia city

Non-traumatic bone fractures are considered a pathologic condition with various etiologies, including cancer metastases, osteoporosis, and long-term corticosteroid consumption, which can affect people's quality of life. The main aim of this study was to investigate the etiology of pathological bone fractures in patients who were referred to the Hospital.

In this cross-sectional study, all patients with non-traumatic pathological fractures were included from March 2015 to February 2019 at Imam Khomeini hospital in Urmia city. Data analysis was calculated by chi-square test using SPSS.ver.17.

A total of 168 patients participated in this study, of which 108 patients (64.3%) were female, and 60 patients (35.7%) were male with a mean age of 58.6±21.1 with a minimum and maximum age of 7 and 90 years old, respectively. According to the results, the most common etiologies consist of osteoporosis (33.3%), metastatic carcinoma (28.6%), and primary tumor (11.3%), respectively. Regarding the anatomical site involved, vertebrae (57.1%) and the neck of the proximal femur (27.4%) were detected as the most frequent sites with fractures, respectively. Moreover, a significant relationship was found between the fracture etiologies and demographics data (age and gender) (p<0.001). In this regard, osteoporosis and metastatic carcinoma were reported as the most common fracture etiologies in females and males. In addition, intertrochanteric-subtrochanteric (7.7%), distal femur (4.8%), intertrochanteric (1.2%), and acetabulum (1.2%) were considered other sites of fracture with less frequency. It is worth noting that for patients with ages less than fifty years old (<50 years old), commonly reported fracture etiology was the primary osteosarcoma, while in patients with ages more than fifty (>50 years old), osteoporosis was defined as the main fracture etiology.

Together, the present study results showed that osteoporosis and metastatic carcinoma were the most critical etiology of fractures, and there was a statistical correlation between demographic characteristics (such as gender and age) and pathological fracture etiologies. According to the statistical results, the most common sites exposed for fractures were also the vertebral and proximal femur.