Editorial on: Association between Combat‐Related Traumatic Injury and Skeletal Health: Bone Mineral Density Loss Is Localized and Correlates with Altered Loading in Amputees: The ADVANCE Study

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

The paper by McMenemy et al., in this edition of the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, is an opportunity to learn about bone health in a unique and sizeable sample of young, previously healthy men suffering combat‐related trauma and lower limb amputation sustained during the war in Afghanistan, between 2003 and 2014. In their study of 1137 British service personnel, the Armed Services Trauma Rehabilitation Outcome (ADVANCE) study team compared bone health outcomes between 575 service personnel who suffered a combat‐related traumatic injury requiring life‐saving medical airlift evacuation to service personnel who did not suffer such an injury. One hundred and fifty‐three of the injured participants suffered a lower limb amputation, and 75 of those lost both lower limbs. The ADVANCE study team judiciously matched participants by factors that could affect bone mineral density (BMD, measured by dual‐energy X‐ray absorptiometry) and adjusted for body mass in amputees to account for the mass lost due to amputation and preinjury height in bilateral amputees to obtain an adjusted body mass index that could be compared to that of nonamputees.