The calcium-PTH-vitamin D-axis has long been highlighted for its effects on bone status and much interest has been given to how this relates to the risk of sustaining an osteoporotic fracture. Little attention has on the other hand been given to how disturbances in this axis, as for example secondary hyperparathyroidism (SHPT), relate to mortality among hip fracture patients. We therefore wanted to determine if SHPT could predict mortality in this group of patients. The study included 562 hip fracture patients (HF) (age 70 years) admitted to a Danish university hospital. Each hip fracture patient was exactly matched according to age and sex with two controls randomly chosen from a control population of approximately 248000 subjects. The control group (Con) (n=1124) consists of subjects who have had PTH, total calcium (Ca) and 25OH-vitamin D (VitD) measured at the General Practitioners Laboratory of Copenhagen after referral from their general practitioner. Of the HF's 462 had a Ca measurement, 440 had a PTH measurement and 439 had a VitD measurement. Basic characteristics (values for age, Ca, PTH and VitD are mean (SD)): Sex (females/males) (%): 73.8/26.2. Age (years): 82.9 (5.7). Ca (mmol/l): Con 2.34 (0.13), HF 2.27 (0.13), p<0.0001 (chi-square). PTH (pmol/l): Con 6.4 (5.8), HF 6.6 (5.4), p=0.4 (chi-square). VitD (nmol/l): Con 53.3 (30.1), HF 49.3 (29.6), p=0.02 (chi-square).Introduction
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