Associations of Quantitative and Qualitative Muscle Parameters With Second Hip Fracture Risk in Older Women: A Prospective Cohort Study

Abstract

Older women with a first hip fracture exhibit heightened susceptibility and incidence of second fracture and potentially severe consequences. This prospective study was to compare the predictive power of qualitative and quantitative muscle parameters for a second hip fracture in older women with a first hip fracture. A total of 206 subjects were recruited from the longitudinal Chinese Second Hip Fracture Evaluation study. Hip computed tomography (CT) scans were obtained immediately after the first fracture. Muscle fat infiltration was assessed according to the Goutallier classification qualitatively. Quantitative parameters included cross-sectional area and density of gluteus maximus (G.MaxM) and gluteus medius and minimus (G.Med/MinM) muscles. CT X-ray absorptiometry was used to measure the areal bone mineral density (aBMD) of the contralateral femur. Cox proportional hazards models were used to compute hazard ratios (HR) of second hip fracture risk. The mean age of subjects was 74.9 (±9.5) years at baseline. After 4.5 years, 35 had a second hip fracture, 153 without a second hip fracture, and 18 died. Except for the combined G.MinM Goutallier grade 3 and 4 groups before adjustment for covariates (HR = 5.83; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.49–22.83), there were no significant HRs for qualitative classification to predict a second hip fracture. Among quantitative metrics, after adjustment for covariates, G.Med/MinM density was significant in the original (HR = 1.44; CI 1.02–2.04) and competing risk analyses (HR = 1.46; CI 1.02–2.07). After additional adjustment for femoral neck (FN) aBMD, G.Med/MinM density remained borderline significant for predicting a second hip fracture in competing risk analysis (HR = 1.43; CI 0.99–2.06; p = 0.057). Our study revealed that Goutallier classification was less effective than quantitative muscle metrics for predicting hip second fracture in this elderly female cohort. After adjustment for FN aBMD, G.Med/MinM density is a borderline independent predictor of second hip fracture risk. © 2023 The Authors. JBMR Plus published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Society for Bone and Mineral Research.