Evaluation of simple calculated osteoporosis risk estimation (SCORE) in Iranian postmenopausal women

Osteoporosis is a major health problem for postmenopausal women in all over the world. Use of dual x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) as standard diagnostic procedure due to the cost is not economical for screening of all postmenopausal women. Based on clinical risk factors several screening tools have been invented and one of the most popular screening tools is Simple Calculated Osteoporosis Risk Estimation (SCORE). The objective of this study was to evaluate performance of this tool in screening of Iranian women for osteoporosis. This deh1ive – analytical study was performed on 341 postmenopausal women who were referred to Isfahan bone densitometry centre. We made use of the osteoporosis screening tools (SCORE) for postmenopausal women aged 45 years or more without secondary cause for osteoporosis and the results were compared with their bone mineral density. Among 341 postmenopausal women who were studied in this study 20.8% were osteoporotic (71 persons) 39.6% had low bone mineral density in one or both studied areas by DXA and the rest of women (39.6%) were found normal. SCORE tool was shown to have sensitivity about 87.2% (95% CI 97.2%–76.4%) and specificity of 37.9% for screening of low bone mass in postmenopausal women. SCORE tool has acceptable sensitivity and accuracy to be used as a tool to identify low bone mineral density in vast majority of Iranian postmenopausal women.