DOI: 10.36347/sjams.2016.v04i02.005

Pages: 311-315

Pathologic fractures refer to bone fractures caused by different diseases and a subsequently weakened bone structure prone to fractures by the slightest trauma and sometimes even no trauma at all. Finding the underlying factors contributing to a condition comprises a major goal of health systems in different societies. The present retrospective study was conducted on all the patients with a fracture sample sent to the pathology department of Shahid Sadoughi Hospital of Yazd between late January 2005 and late May 2015 selected through simple random sampling. The patients’ demographic information, including age, gender, site of fracture, cause of fracture, underlying diseases and pathological results, were recorded in a pre-formulated checklist and then analyzed in SPSS version 17. P-values less than 0.05 were considered statistically significant. Of the total of 100,000 cases referred to the pathology department of the select hospital over the 10-year period, 64 cases were related to pathologic fractures. About 56.3% of the cases of pathologic fracture were male and 43.7% female. Of the 64 cases, 24 (37.5%) had avascular necrosis, 15 (23.4%) osteoporosis, 9 (14.1%) bone metastases, 5 (7.8%) bone cysts, 7 (10.9%) inflammatory reactions and 4 (6.3%) primary bone tumors. A significant relationship was observed between the site and cause of fracture and the patients’ age (P<0.05). The present study found pathologic fractures to be highly prevalent among patients with avascular necrosis and osteoporosis, given that avascular necrosis was the most frequent cause of pathologic fractures among the younger and osteoporosis among the older individuals.