The association between risk of limb fracture and type 2 diabetes mellitus

// Jie Liu 1, * , Lei Cao 2, * , Yao-Wen Qian 1 , Zhi-Xin Chen 1 , Shi-Fang Guo 1 , Wei-Qiang Sun 3 and Zong-Ru He 1 1 Orthopaedic Department of People’s Hospital of Gansu Provincial, Lanzhou 730000, China 2 Pediatrical Department of Gansu Provincial Maternity and Child-care Hospital, Lanzhou 730000, China 3 Traditional Chinese Hospital of Gansu Zhang County, Dingxi 743000, China * These authors contributed equally to this work Correspondence to: Yao-Wen Qian, email: batchdog1@yeah.net Keywords: limb fracture; diabetes mellitus; risk factor; meta-analysis Received: October 14, 2017 Accepted: November 02, 2017 Epub: January 05, 2018 Published: July 27, 2018 ABSTRACT Background: Recently, increasing reports showed that the risk of fracture may be correlated with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). However, their results still remained controversial. Thus we performed a meta-analysis including 11 studies to estimate the risk factor of limb fracture in type 2 diabetes mellitus. Materials and Methods: Databases including PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library and Web of Science were searched to September, 2017. Risk Ratio (RR) with its 95% confidence intervals (CI) was used to evaluate the association between risk of limb fracture and type 2 diabetes mellitus. Two reviewers assessed the quality of all the included studies and extracted data for analysis independently. Results: A total of 11 studies including 663,923 participants were included in this meta-analysis. Our analysis results showed that patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus had a significant association with risk of limb fracture (RR 1.18; 95% CI 1.02–1.35), including leg or ankle fracture (RR 1.80; 95% CI 1.13–2.87). Subgroup analysis showed individuals with type 2 diabetes had almost two-fold excessive risk of leg/ankle fracture in women and the pooled RR of leg/ankle fracture was 2.03 (95% CI 1.36–3.05; P = 0.0006). Conclusions: The results of the present meta-analysis showed that individuals with type 2 diabetes mellitus had higher risk of limb fractures, and this relationship is more pronounced in leg or ankle fracture.