U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

NCBI Bookshelf. A service of the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health.

  • Update information February 2017: The guideline was updated to correct reference to the WHO in relation to the FRAX tool. Minor changes since publication August 2019: We updated the weekly alcohol intake for men in recommendation 1.1 in line with the UK chief medical officers' low risk drinking guidelines.

Update information February 2017: The guideline was updated to correct reference to the WHO in relation to the FRAX tool. Minor changes since publication August 2019: We updated the weekly alcohol intake for men in recommendation 1.1 in line with the UK chief medical officers' low risk drinking guidelines.

Cover of Osteoporosis: Fragility Fracture Risk

Osteoporosis: Fragility Fracture Risk

Osteoporosis: Assessing the Risk of Fragility Fracture

NICE Clinical Guidelines, No. 146

.

Excerpt

There are a number of therapies and treatments available for the prevention of fragility fractures in people thought to be at risk, or to prevent further fractures in those who have already had one or more fragility fractures. However, identifying who will benefit from preventative treatment is imprecise. A number of risk assessment tools are available to predict fracture incidence over a period of time, and these may be used to aid decision making. These tools are limited in that they may not include all risk factors, or may lack details of some risk factors. Tools are dependent on the accuracy of the epidemiological data used to derive them and tools validated in other populations may not apply to the UK.. Two tools, FRAX and QFracture, are available for use in the UK. It is not clear whether these tools are equally accurate and whether choice of tool should depend on circumstances. This short clinical guideline aims to provide guidance on the selection and use of risk assessment tools in the care of people who may be at risk of fragility fractures in all settings in which NHS care is received.

Contents

This guideline was developed following the NICE short clinical guideline process. This document includes all the recommendations, details of how they were developed and summaries of the evidence they were based on.

For further information on writing clinical guidelines, see chapter 10 and appendix N of ‘The guidelines manual’ (available from www​.nice.org.uk/GuidelinesManual).

Copyright © 2012, National Clinical Guideline Centre.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher or, in the case of reprographic reproduction, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency in the UK. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the terms stated here should be sent to the publisher at the UK address printed on this page.

The use of registered names, trademarks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant laws and regulations and therefore for general use.

The rights of National Clinical Guideline Centre to be identified as Author of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

Bookshelf ID: NBK115323PMID: 23285503

Views

Similar articles in PubMed

See reviews...See all...

Recent Activity

Your browsing activity is empty.

Activity recording is turned off.

Turn recording back on

See more...