Ampath Diagnostic Guide | Your consulting pathologists
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🦴 What is Bone?
Bone is essential for:
- Movement – enables muscular function
- Protection – shields vital organs
- Metabolism – stores critical minerals like calcium and phosphate
Bone is made of:
- A mesh of soft tissue (mainly collagen and bone cells)
- Packed minerals (mainly calcium and phosphate)
This unique structure makes bone hard enough to support the body, yet flexible enough to absorb impact.
Bone constantly renews itself in a process called bone turnover – complete skeletal renewal takes about 25 years.
🧬 What Happens in Osteoporosis?
Osteoporosis (from "osteo" = bone, and "poros" = pores) is when bone resorption (breakdown) occurs faster than bone formation.
This leads to:
- Reduced bone mass
- Lower bone density
- Fragile, soft bones prone to fractures
⚠️ Symptoms of Osteoporosis
Often called a “silent disease”, as there are usually no symptoms until a fracture occurs.
Most common fracture sites:
- Wrist
- Hip
- Spine
You do not need a fracture to be diagnosed — regular screening is crucial.
🧪 Diagnosis of Osteoporosis
Screening is done using a DEXA scan, which measures Bone Mineral Density (BMD).
Interpretation of T-scores:
- Normal: T-score greater than -1
- Osteopaenia: T-score between -1 and -2.5
- Osteoporosis: T-score less than -2.5
- Severe osteoporosis:
- T-score less than -2.5 AND
- One or more fragility fractures
Osteopaenia means bone loss that is less severe than osteoporosis but still abnormal.
🎯 Who Gets Osteoporosis?
- 9 million fractures annually worldwide are attributed to osteoporosis
- Lifetime risk after age 50:
- 40% in women
- 20% in men
Risk factors:
- Advanced age
- Female gender
- Caucasian ethnicity
- Obesity
- Inactivity
- Family history of osteoporotic fracture
- Poor nutrition
- Smoking
- Alcohol misuse
🧾 Why Does Osteoporosis Happen?
While age-related osteoporosis is most common, some treatable causes include:
- Primary hyperparathyroidism
- Multiple myeloma
- Malabsorption
- Diabetes mellitus
- Inflammatory bowel disease
Treating the underlying cause may help reverse the bone loss.
💊 How is Osteoporosis Treated?
Prevention is key:
- Eat healthy
- Exercise regularly
- Avoid smoking
- Limit alcohol use
- Use vitamin D and calcium supplements
Confirmed cases:
- Benefit from all the above
- May also require pharmacological treatment to:
- Slow bone resorption
- Promote bone formation
- Blood tests may be used to monitor treatment effectiveness
Doctors follow established clinical guidelines to:
- Choose treatment
- Assess effectiveness
- Determine follow-up intervals
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