Use of FRAX as a determinant for risk-based osteoporosis screening may decrease unnecessary testing while improving the odds of identifying treatment candidates

Age-dependent assessment thresholds to optimize patient care in a resource-limited setting: an analysis based on the Sri Lankan FRAX model

Age-dependent upper and lower assessment thresholds help categorizing women aged 40 years or more according to their fracture risk, independent of BMD information.

INTRODUCTION

Age-dependent assessment thresholds of the FRAX algorithm help stratifying men and women aged 40 years or more according to their fracture risk. This allows clinicians to decide on those who require interventions without BMD assessment and those who require BMD input for further assessment.

METHODS

Intervention thresholds were defined by 10-year probabilities of a major osteoporotic fracture (MOF) and hip fracture (HF) considering a woman with a BMI of 25.0 kg/m² having a prior fragility fracture but no other clinical risk factors. The lower assessment thresholds (LAT) were set at 0.8 times the 10-year probabilities of a MOF and HF in a woman with a BMI of 25.0 kg/m², without previous fracture or other clinical risk factors. The upper assessment thresholds (UAT) were set at 1.2 times the intervention thresholds of MOF and HF. Fracture probabilities were estimated for the age range of 40-80 years, without BMD input. These values were applied to a group of women who underwent DXA for clinical reasons in a single center.

RESULTS

The LATs of MOF and HF varied from 0.7 to 8.8% and 0.1 to 3.7%, from 40 to 80 years, respectively. The corresponding values for UATs were 2.5 to 21.6% and 0.3 to 8.4%. ITs of MOF and HF varied from 2.1 to 18% and 0.2 to 7%, respectively. When applied to a group of 315 postmenopausal women who underwent DXA for clinical indications, 22.9% of women were above the UATs (high-risk category) while 8.6% were below the LATs (low-risk category). The proportion of women in the intermediate category who require BMD for further assessment was 68.6% (95% CI 59.7 to 77.5%).

CONCLUSIONS

In nearly one-third of women aged 40 years or more, the decision to treat or not to treat can be achieved without BMD estimation. The remaining two-thirds will require a BMD assessment for further evaluation.

Identification of Five Quality Needs for Rheumatology (Text Analysis and Literature Review)

Background: While the use of the term "quality" in industry relates to the basic idea of making processes measurable and standardizing processes, medicine focuses on achieving health goals that go far beyond the mere implementation of diagnostic and therapeutic processes. However, the quality management systems used are often simple, self-created concepts that concentrate on administrative processes without considering the quality of the results, which is essential for the patient. For several rheumatic diseases, both outcome and treatment goals have been defined. This work summarizes current mainstreams of strategies with published quality efforts in rheumatology. Methods: PubMed, Cochrane Library, and Web of Science were used to search for studies, and additional manual searches were carried out. Screening and content evaluation were carried out using the PRISMA-P 2015 checklist. After duplicate search in the Endnote reference management software (version X9.1), the software Rayyan QCRI (https://rayyan.qcri.org) was applied to check for pre-defined inclusion and exclusion criteria. Abstracts and full texts were screened and rated using Voyant Tools (https://voyant-tools.org/). Key issues were identified using the collocate analysis. Results: The number of selected publications was small but specific (14 relevant correlations with coefficients >0.8). Using trend analysis, 15 publications with relative frequency of keywords >0.0125 were used for content analysis, revealing 5 quality needs. The treat to target (T2T) initiative was identified as fundamental paradigm. Outcome parameters required for T2T also allow quality assessments in routine clinical work. Quality care by multidisciplinary teams also focusing on polypharmacy and other quality aspects become essential, A global software platform to assess quality aspects is missing. Such an approach requires reporting of multiple outcome parameters according to evidence-based clinical guidelines and recommendations for the different rheumatic diseases. All health aspects defined by the WHO (physical, mental, and social health) have to be integrated into the management of rheumatic patients. Conclusion: For the future, quality projects need goals defined by T2T based initiatives in routine clinical work, secondary quality goals include multidisciplinary cooperation and reduction of polypharmacy. Quality indicators and standards in different health systems will provide new information to optimize patients' care in different health systems.

Time to Clinically Relevant Fracture Risk Scores in Postmenopausal Women

BACKGROUND

Clinical practice guidelines recommend use of fracture risk scores for screening and pharmacologic treatment decisions. The timing of occurrence of treatment-level (according to 2014 National Osteoporosis Foundation guidelines) or screening-level (according to 2011 US Preventive Services Task Force guidelines) fracture risk scores has not been estimated in postmenopausal women.

METHODS

We conducted a retrospective competing risk analysis of new occurrence of treatment-level and screening-level fracture risk scores in postmenopausal women aged 50 years and older, prior to receipt of pharmacologic treatment and prior to first hip or clinical vertebral fracture.

RESULTS

In 54,280 postmenopausal women aged 50 to 64 years without a bone mineral density test, the time for 10% to develop a treatment-level FRAX score could not be estimated accurately because of rare incidence of treatment-level scores. In 6096 women who had FRAX scores calculated with bone mineral density, the estimated unadjusted time to treatment-level FRAX ranged from 7.6 years (95% confidence interval [CI], 6.6-8.7) for those aged 65 to 69, to 5.1 years (95% CI, 3.5-7.5) for those aged 75 to 79 at baseline. Of 17,967 women aged 50 to 64 with a screening-level FRAX at baseline, 100 (0.6%) experienced a hip or clinical vertebral fracture by age 65 years.

CONCLUSIONS

Postmenopausal women with sub-threshold fracture risk scores at baseline were unlikely to develop a treatment-level FRAX score between ages 50 and 64 years. After age 65, the increased incidence of treatment-level fracture risk scores, osteoporosis, and major osteoporotic fracture supports more frequent consideration of FRAX and bone mineral density testing.

“Rheum to Improve”: Quality Improvement in Outpatient Rheumatology

The commitment to improve care processes and patient outcomes is a professional mandate for clinicians and is also seen as an operational priority for institutions. Quality improvement now figures in the accreditation of training programs, specialty examinations, and hospital scorecards. Rheumatologists have traditionally focused primarily on quality problems such as guideline adherence; however, improvement goals should also include other aspects of care that are helpful to patients and are professionally rewarding for practitioners. This review makes use of improvement projects in outlining tangible tools rheumatologists can use to resolve quality concerns in their practices.

Quality of Cancer Surveillance Clinical Practice Guidelines: Specificity and Consistency of Recommendations

Importance

Primary care clinicians, who are increasingly responsible for caring for the growing population of cancer survivors, may be unfamiliar with appropriate cancer surveillance strategies. Clinical practice guidelines can inform cancer follow-up care and surveillance testing. Vague recommendations and inconsistencies among guidelines can lead to overuse and underuse of health care resources and have a negative impact on cost and quality of survivorship care.

Objective

To examine the specificity and consistency of recommendations for surveillance after active treatment across cancer guidelines.

Design, Setting, and Participants

Retrospective cross-sectional analysis of national cancer guidelines from North America and Europe published since 2010 addressing posttreatment care for survivors of the 9 most common cancers. We categorized surveillance modalities into history and physical examinations, tumor markers, diagnostic procedures (eg, colonoscopy), and imaging. Within each guideline, we classified individual recommendations into 5 categories: (1) risk-based recommendation, (2) recommendation for surveillance, (3) addressed but no clear recommendation, (4) recommendation against surveillance, or (5) cases in which surveillance was not addressed. We reviewed each surveillance recommendation for frequency and a stop date, evaluated consistency among guidelines, and analyzed associations between the organizations proposing the guidelines and recommendation characteristics.

Main Outcomes and Measures

Description of guideline recommendations for cancer surveillance.

Results

We identified 41 guidelines published between January 1, 2010, and March 1, 2016. Eighty-five percent of guidelines (35) were from professional organizations. Ambiguous recommendations (ie, modality not discussed or discussed without a clear recommendation) were present in 83% of guidelines (34), and 44% (18) recommended against at least 1 test. European guidelines were more likely than North American guidelines to contain ambiguous recommendations (100% vs 68%; P < .01). Recommendations commonly specified testing frequency (from 88% [14 of 16] for tumor markers to 92% [24 of 26] for procedures and/or imaging) but infrequently provided a definitive stop time. Cross-sectional imaging recommendations varied among guidelines for each cancer. For example, among breast cancer guidelines, surveillance computed tomographic scans were recommended against in 2, discussed without a clear recommendation in 1, and not addressed in 3 guidelines.

Conclusions and Relevance

Guidelines addressing the care of cancer survivors have low specificity and consistency. As guidelines continue to be revised, developers should clarify recommendations with simple, nonambiguous, definitive language for or against the use of specific tests to optimize care quality and resource utilization.