ABSTRACT
Introduction:
Fracture of the proximal
femur is common in
elderly patients, in fact threatening their lives. Age-related
sarcopenia may be involved in the imbalance resulting in the
injury. Handy and readily accessible biochemical tests would be useful to assess the
musculoskeletal system condition in daily practice. The aim of the study was to determine whether there is any relation between
muscle decay and fracture of the proximal
femur and to assess
bone quality in
elderly patients. Material and
methods:
In the study 22
patients who represented the
treatment group were hospitalized due to
proximal femur fracture. Eighteen
patients from the
control group with no fracture in their
history were admitted to the
Internal Medicine Department. Anyone treated for
osteoporosis,
immune disease affecting
protein balance,
neoplasm,
mental illness,
heart failure, or
myocardial infarction was excluded from the study. In every case a
blood sample from an
elbow vein was drawn, collected in
EDTA-K2 tubes, and then centrifuged to separate
plasma from the whole
blood. Subsequently, the concentrations of C-terminal cross-linked telopeptide of
type I collagen (CTX-I),
sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG) and
creatine kinase (CK) in
plasma were determined using commercial
enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays.
Results:
The CK
plasma concentration differed between the
patient groups (p = 0.011). The SHBG
plasma concentration was significantly higher in the
treatment group (p = 0.006), whereas a slight difference in CTX-I
plasma concentration between the groups was found (p = 0.038). No significant correlations between
plasma CK, SHBG or CTX-I were found (p > 0.05).
Conclusions:
Creatine kinase is actually not an appropriate marker for the clinical assessment of
muscle tissue quality in
patients with or at
risk of
proximal femur fracture. Analyzing the quality of
bone tissue, we can conclude it was poorer in
patients with
proximal femur fracture than in the
control group.