OsteoSim

• Project number: FFG850746
• Project Management: Dieter Pahr, Karl Landsteiner University for Health Sciences / Division of Biomechanics
• Project partners: Danube University Krems / Department of Regenerative Medicine, Braincon GmbH&CoKG, Vienna University of Technology / Institute for Lightweight Construction and Structural Biomechanics
• Project duration: 36 months from 01.12.2015

Background

Osteoporosis is a common age-related disease of the bone. The cause of osteoporosis is usually a hormonal change. It mainly affects older women, but men are also increasingly suffering from this disease. The widespread disease osteoporosis is gradually becoming a health economic problem. Osteoporosis gradually reduces bone density. This biomechanically weakens the entire skeleton and increases the likelihood of bone fractures. In everyday clinical practice, the diagnosis of osteoporosis or, more generally, the assessment of fracture risk is based on bone density measurement (BMD measurement). According to the WHO, a T < -2.5 standard deviation is considered a critical threshold for the diagnosis of osteoporosis. Unfortunately, results of studies (e.g. Rotterdam Study3 ) show that in a group with non-vertebral fractures, only 44 percent of women and 21 percent of men had a T value lower than -2.5. The final goal is to combine both findings - osteoporosis and osteoarthritis - and to use new, validated assessment models to primarily differentiate between osteoporosis and osteoarthritis, which gives better results than the T-score. The secondary goal is to identify correlations and possible interactions between the two diseases. This will be achieved through four core research tasks: new osteoporosis assessment models, standardisation of radiographs, combined findings - correlations between osteoporosis and osteoarthritis, validation of the new osteoporosis assessment models.