Association between osteoporotic fractures and statin use – A review of literature and results of a preliminary case control study done at National Hospital of Sri Lanka

A case control study was conducted among elderly patients presenting to NHSL accident service. A hundred patients aged more than 60 years who presented with newly diagnosed neck of femur, distal radial and vertebral body wedge fractures following minor trauma were recruited from April 2021 to July 2021. Patients who had previous osteoporotic fractures and previous hip, distal radius and spine surgery were excluded from the study. An additional group of 100 patients who were matched for age and sex presenting to the same unit following minor trauma without osteoporotic fractures were selected as the control group with the same exclusion criteria. Use of statins for more than 4 months and other sociodemographic and lifestyle factors were compared among the two groups. As no other independent variable was found to be significantly related to osteoporotic fracturs between the two groups, univariable analysis was done. The odds of current statin use in cases with osteoporotic fracture (45.2%) were lower than the odds of current statin use (54.8%) in subjects without osteoporotic fractures adjusted OR 0.74, 95% CI 0.42, 1.32) (p=0.304). According to our results there might be a protective effect in statin use against osteoporotic fractures although a statistical significance was not demonstrated. However further studies using larger sample size and randomized control studies are suggested to ascertain a statistically significant result.