Comparison of bone densitometry in alcoholic and non-alcoholic males above 50 years

Abstract

Title: The comparison of BMD in alcoholic and non-alcoholic males above 50 years of age using DEXA.

Background: DEXA scan is a gold standard procedure for the evaluation of bone health (BMD).  It uses a low dose of ionizing radiation to calculate the bone mineral density. The BMD was measured from the lumbar spine from L1 to L4.

 Objective: The aim of this study is to compare the BMD of alcoholic and non-alcoholic males above 50 years.

 Method: 30 patient’s data were collected prospectively and mean and percentage stats were used.

 Result: Out of 30 patients, 12 patients were alcoholic and 18 patients were non-alcoholic. Result shows that out of 30 patients, 6(20%) patients have osteopenia,16(53.3%) patient have osteoporosis, and 8 (26.6%) patients have normal BMD. The alcoholic patients have low BMD compare to the non-alcoholic patients, also BMD decreases with the increase in age.

Conclusion: The study concluded that heavy alcohol intake may decrease the BMD. This study showed decreased bone mineral density in patients with heavy alcohol intake. The mean BMD of alcoholic patients was 0.739 g/cm2 and the mean BMD of non-alcoholic patients was 0.908 g/cm2. The lowest and highest Z-scores respectively of alcoholic patients were (-3.7) and (-1.5), lowest and highest Z-scores respectively of non-alcoholic patients were (-2.9) and (0). The lowest and highest T-scores respectively of alcoholic patients were (-4.4) and (-1.9), lowest and highest T-scores respectively of non-alcoholic patients were (-4) and (-0.4). The alcoholic patients have lower BMD,T-score, and Z-score comparison to the non-alcoholic patients. Dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) is an easy and effective method to detect low bone mass using T score according to WHO classification.