Trends in the Diagnosis of Osteoporosis in Patients with Distal Radius Fractures Based on a National Claims Database

Background: A history of osteoporotic fractures is strongly associated with the subsequent osteoporotic fractures. To prevent subsequent fractures, the diagnosis and treatment of osteoporosis following osteoporotic fractures are very important. A distal radius fracture (DRF) is the second most common type of osteoporotic fracture in South Korea. We analyzed the rate of osteoporosis diagnosis within 6 months post-DRF.

Methods: We used data from the Korean Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service nationwide claims database from 2010 to 2016. International Classification of Diseases, 10th revision codes and procedures codes were used to identify patients aged over 50 years with newly diagnosed DRFs; the osteoporosis assessments of these patients were then analyzed. We used Cochran-Armitage trend test to examine trends in osteoporosis diagnosis.

Results: A search of database identified 77,209 DRFs in patient aged above 50 years of age from 2011 to 2016. Among these patients, only 19,305 (25.0%) underwent diagnostic examination for osteoporosis. The number of osteoporosis examinations increased slightly, but not significantly, every year (=0.061).

Conclusions: Clinicians who treat DRFs shoulder also evaluated patients for osteoporosis after DRFs.