Osteoporosis Screening Tools in Iranian Postmenopausal Women

Osteoporosis is a major health problem, but testing low bone mineral density is not practical for screening all postmenopausal women. The objective of this study was to evaluate the efficiency of the clinical tools to help clinicians to identify the Iranian women at an increased risk for osteoporosis. The popular osteoporosis screening tools were evaluated in 341 postmenopausal women without secondary cause for osteoporosis, using data from a bone densitometry centre, and compared the results with their bone mineral density. National Osteoporosis Foundation recommendations had only a sensitivity of 48% for screening patients with low bone mass but the Osteoporosis Risk Assessment Instrument and the Simple Calculated Osteoporosis Risk Assessment Estimation with a sensitivity of 70.9% and 87.2%, respectively, showed better results in respect to the screening for osteoporosis of postmenopausal women. The efficiency of these osteoporosis screening tools in our Iranian patients was relatively similar to that of other populations, and these screening tools accurately identify the vast majority of postmenopausal women likely to have low bone mineral density.