Abstract
There is a need to identify patients with osteopenia who are at high risk of sustaining fractures and who would benefit from treatment, since many patients with osteopenia do not sustain fractures. In 2008, the WHO unveiled the fracture risk-assessment tool (FRAX®), which calculates the 10-year probability of a patient sustaining a fracture. It is available on the internet free of charge, and represents a major step forward since it takes into account a number of risk factors and allows clinicians to focus on those patients at high risk of sustaining fractures, in whom the benefits of treating a silent disease outweigh the potential adverse effects and cost. In the USA, the National Osteoporosis Foundation has suggested a fracture threshold to recommend treatment. In this article, the various risk factors included in the FRAX tool are briefly reviewed, and the advantages, potential limitations and possible future developments are discussed.
Acknowledgment
Dr Hamdy would like to thank Ms Lindy Russell for her editorial assistance.
Financial & competing interests disclosure
The author has no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.
No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.