Women With Lupus Have A Higher Risk For Hip Fractures

Publicado por richardpatterson741

July 6, 2013

Women, who are afflicted with lupus, have a higher potentiality to suffer from hip fractures according to new research.

Lupus is a chronic inflammatory disease where the body’s immune system attacks its own tissues and organs. Thus lupus is considered an autoimmune disorder. In patients with an autoimmune disorder, the immune system can’t tell the difference between healthy body tissue and antigens it normally defends against.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_138436.html

Women With Lupus Seem at Higher Risk for Hip Fractures

Study followed nearly 15,000 patients for 6 years

Thursday, July 4, 2013

Dr. Shu-Hung Wang, of the Taipei Veterans General Hospital, and his colleagues evaluated nearly 15,000 adults -- 90 percent of them women -- who had lupus. They followed them for an average of six years.THURSDAY, July 4 (HealthDay News) -- Women with lupus -- the autoimmune disease that can damage skin, joints and organs -- also are at higher risk of a hip fracture known as a cervical fracture, new research from Taiwan suggests.

During that time, 75 suffered a hip fracture. Of those, 57 were cervical fractures of the hip; the other 18 were trochanteric fractures of the hip.

"Anatomically, cervical hip fractures involve the [uppermost area of the thighbone]," said Dr. Shu-Hung Wang, a rheumatology fellow at the hospital and a co-author of the study. "Trochanteric hip fracture occurs between the lesser and greater trochanters." Trochanters are the bony prominences near the end of the thighbone.

The researchers compared the women and men with lupus to the same number of healthy people without lupus. In the healthy group, 43 had hip fractures during the follow-up period, and they were evenly divided between the two types.......

For those reasons, experts in recent years have been focusing on using the lowest dose possible of steroids to control symptoms, Pisetsky said.

To help preserve bone health, Pisetsky tells his lupus patients to get enough calcium and vitamin D and to take bone-maintenance drugs, if their doctor decides they are necessary.

Getting regular exercise can help too, he said. With age, lupus patients should try to preserve their balance, which also can reduce the risk of falls.

Study co-author Wang reported serving on advisory boards and receiving honoraria for speaking from several pharmaceutical companies. The study was funded by the Taiwan National Science Council, Taipei Veterans General Hospital and other institutions.

SOURCE: Shu-Hung Wang, M.D., rheumatology fellow, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan; David Pisetsky, M.D., Ph.D., professor of medicine, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, N.C., and member, scientific advisory board, Lupus Research Institute; Joan Merrill, M.D., medical director, Lupus Foundation of America, and program chairwoman, clinical pharmacology research program, Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, Oklahoma City; April 6, 2013, Arthritis Care & Research, online

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