ABSTRACT
The aim of managing osteoporosis is to restore bone strength and to reduce fracture rate. For expediency, the efficiency of an anti-osteoporotic regime is most often assessed by measuring the BMD rather than the fracture rate. This gives a false sense of security: BMD is not a true density (being expressed as gCa/cm2) and measures bone mineral only; it gives no idea about the structure and composition of the bone within which this mineral lives. Despite this, there is a comforting inverse statistical relationship between BMD and fracture rate. This is not strictly linear and a therapeutically induced increase in bone density can be associated with disproportionate decrease in fracture rate.
