Background:

Menopausal women lose until 5% of their bone density during the first years of menopause. One of 12 Mexican women will suffer a hip osteoporotic fracture after the age of 50.

Objective:

To assess the absolute risk of major fracture (vertebrae, hip and forearm) and hip fracture and to establish the relation between years of menopause and bone mineral density (BMD).

Method:

A cross sectional analytical study, including women over 50 classified by early and natural menopause. Bone densitometry was performed and risk of fracture was calculated with FRAX (Fracture Risk Assessment Tool).

Results:

From 209 women, 32% had early menopause and 68% had natural menopause. The average age were 67.4 ± 9.2 vs. 65.9 ± 8.3 years; they had 27.3 ± 9.4 vs. 15.2 ± 8.4 years of menopause (p ≤ 0.01); the hip BMD was 0.6286 ± 0.115 vs. 0.6789 ± 0.132 g/cm2 (p ≤ 0.05), with a T-score of −2.11 ± 0.979 vs −1.70 ± 1.129 (p ≤ 0.05), respectively. The 10 years risk probability for major fractures was 8.8 ± 4.7 vs. 7.4 ± 4.7 (p ≤ 0.05) and for hip fractures was 3.2 ± 3.0 vs. 2.5 ± 2.9 (p > 0.05).

Conclusions:

We recommend to take into account the clinical importance of the years of menopause and the type of menopause, as factors that influence the bone density decrease and the increase of future fractures risk.

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