Patients with iron overload were 60% more likely to have an osteoporotic fracture during an up to 10-year follow-up than matched control patients, in a large study.
and calcium, said Burden, assistant professor, Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, ETH Zurich, Switzerland.
"The study shows that once patients have an iron overload of more than 1000 µg/L, we need to be doing regular checks for their BMD and figuring how to best minimize their fracture risk." Using data from the IQVIA Medical Research Database, researchers identified 21,166 iron overload patients aged 18 years and older who saw a general practitioner in the UK between 2010 and 2020 and had a serum ferritin level above 1000 µg/L or a diagnostic code for hemochromatosis or non-anemic thalassemia.
Among women, the incidence of osteoporotic fracture was 12.63 per 1000 patient-years in the iron overload group and 7.09 per 1000 patient-years in the control group.Among men, the incidence of osteoporotic fracture was 6.71 per 1000 patient-years in the iron overload group and 3.01 per 1000 patient-years in the control group.