Analysis of The Distribution Characteristics of Thoracolumbar Compression Fractures
Abstract Background : Vertebral compression fracture (VCF) is the most common osteoporotic fracture which significantly decreases patient’s quality of life and high risk of subsequent osteoporotic fracture. VCFs also result in substantial financial burden on the public health system. Studying the characteristics of VCFs with analyzing the distributional differences by age and sex is meaningful for us to prevent and treat the VCFs.Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the patients with thoracolumbar VCF from December 2012 to June 2018 in our department. A total of 675 cases met the study inclusion criteria for analysis. We divided the patients into four groups by age with every 10 years from 50 to 89 years old. Morbidity in each sex, the occurrence of single- or multisegment fractures and the distribution of fractures from T7 to L5 was calculated for every group. All the data was tested by SPSS.Results: The highest proportion of male patients was in Group 4 (80-89 years old), and the lowest was in Group 2 (60-69 years old). The highest and lowest proportion of female patients was in Group 2 and Group 4, P value < 0.05.The highest proportion of multisegment fractures was in Group 3 (70-79 years old), and the lowest was in Group 1 (50-59 years old). The highest proportion of single-segment fractures was in Group 1, and the lowest was in Group 3, P > 0.05.Compared with the other vertebral fractures, L4 had P <0.05; others were all >0.05.Conclusions: As affected by individualized stress mechanisms of different vertebras and degree of osteoporosis, thoracolumbar VCFs have different characteristics that could assist physicians in carefully selecting treatment regimens to reduce pain and complications and improve the quality of life of patients.