Although the vertebral fracture is a cardinal manifestation of osteoporosis, much of such fracture is asymptomatic and there is frequent disagreement about whether a fracture is present in mild case of osteoporosis. In the elderly patients who
visited
for back pain, the dicision of shape and degree of vertebral fracture is difficult because that there is no previous radiography for comparision. Also, the vertebral fracture by involutional osteoporosis is confused with the vertebral deformity
in
definition, and determing whether a fracture is present is not absolutely standardized on the clinical and research ground. This problem can be approached by measuring vertebrae from healthy subject to establish norms and there may be many
limitation in
deciding the degree of angle and height of body. At recent. Richard Eastell etc classified the vertebral fractue in the osteoporosis into wedging type, compression type, biconcave type and subclassified into grade 1 and grade 2.
Author has analysed the vertebral fracture by comprehensive classification system that includes the type, degree and numbers of deformity in 47 patients who visited at the department of orthopaedic surgery. Dong-A university hospital from April,
1990 to
December, 1991 compared to 45 normal group, and performed Dual Photon X-ray Absorptiometry and investigated correlation between BMD and the vertebral fracture in the osteoporosis.
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