ANALYSIS OF BONE MINERAL DENSITY AMONG RURAL AND URBAN POSTMENOPAUSAL WOMEN

Abstract

Osteoporosis is a serious public health concern due to its prevalence worldwide. It leads to increased morbidity and mortality associated with fragility fractures 1. Since osteoporosis is often clinically silent it is imperative to make a concerted effort to identify individuals who are at risk of fracture. The aim of this study is to Analyze bone mineral density among rural and urban postmenopausal women. For this comparative study 500 postmenopausal women in the age group of 45-60 years were randomly selected from rural and urban area(250 in each group) in Tamil Nadu, India.. Rural subjects were selected from Somangalam region which is located in Kancheepuram district. Urban subjects were selected from Perambur region, Chennai. Weights and heights of patients were measured using standardized device. Bone mineral density was measured using Furuno’s CM-200 light ultrasound bone densitometer at the calcaeneous. Bone mineral density values were measured in terms of quantitative ultra sound device specific T-score criteria which is similar to World health organization’s criteria2 . Bone mineral density measurements of the subjects were graded according to the T-score as normal, Osteopenia and osteoporotic.. Results were statistically analyzed using Percentile and Analysis of variance . Among rural post menopausal women 30.4% were found to be osteoporotic ,45.2% were osteopenic,24.4% had normal bone mineral density and in urban post menopausal women 24.8% had T- score value below -2.5 (osteoporotic condition),41.2% were Osteopenia and 34% had normal bone mineral density. The mean value of height and weight of urban postmenopausal women was higher than the rural postmenopausal women and was statistically significant at 0.05 level of confidence. Results concluded that prevalence of osteoporosis among postmenopausal women is greater in rural area than the urban area.