14 DAY TRIAL // A new study carried out by Margaret L. Gourlay, MD, MPH of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, concluded that older women with normal T-scores do not need to be screened for bone mineral density for a 10-year period.
Ever since 2002, the US Preventive Services Task Force recommends that women over 65 should get routine screening for osteoporosis every two years, but this time interval is now challenged by Gourlay's team.
She and the co-authors of the study found out that aged 67 years and older with normal bone mineral density scores may not need screening again for 10 years.
For the research, the team gathered data from 5,035 women aged 67 years and older, enrolled in the longest-running osteoporosis study in the US – the Study of Osteoporotic Fractures.
They signed in from 1986 to 1988 when they were at least 65 years, and their bone mineral density, or BMD, started to be tested almost two years later.
Over the study period, all participants had their BMD tested at least twice, and some even five times, over a period of 15 years.
For better analyzing the results, women were classified by BMD T-scores, that compare someone's BMD to the expected bone density of a healthy 30-year old.
Evidently, women with osteoporosis – with a T-score under -2.5, were excluded.
The rest were parted in three groups, according to their baseline BMD T-scores at the hip: the high risk group had T-scores between -1.99 and -1.50, the low risk group – -1.49 to -1.01, and women with normal BMD had T-scores of -1.00 or higher.
After analysis, the team concluded that in order to correctly determine how often a patient should be screened, doctors needed to consider the baseline BMD.
Also, older postmenopausal women with a T-score higher than -2.0 may not need screening for a period of 5 to 10 years.
Gourlay said that “doctors may adjust these time intervals for a number of reasons, but our results offer an evidence-based starting point for this clinical decision.
“If a woman's bone density at age 67 is very good, then she doesn't need to be re-screened in two years or three years, because we're not likely to see much change.
“Our study found it would take about 16 years for 10 percent of women in the highest bone density ranges to develop osteoporosis.
“That was longer than we expected, and it's great news for this group of women,” concluded Gourlay.
Margaret L. Gourlay is an assistant professor in UNC's Department of Family Medicine, and she presented these results at the annual meeting of the American Society for Bone Mineral Research (ASBMR) in Toronto, October 17.