HIV Tied to Almost Tripled Fracture Risk in Nationwide Denmark Study

This article was reported by the International AIDS Society.

The International AIDS Society reported on a study investigating the association between HIV diagnosis and fracture risk. In this case-control study, the researchers used data from Danish National Health Service registries to compare 124,655 persons who had fractures and 373,962 age-and gender-matched controls who did not have fractures.

Of the participants who had fractures, 50 were HIV-positive for a rate of 0.40 per 1,000, and 52 from the no-fractures control group were HIV-positive for a rate of 0.14 per 1,000. After adjusting for other risk factors, findings indicate that HIV-positive individuals had approximately three times the risk of fracture than HIV-negative individuals. The researchers also determined fracture risk at specific sites. HIV-positive individuals had a nine times higher risk of hip and spine fractures and three and a half times higher risk of forearm fracture.

The full report, "HIV Infection and Its Association with an Excess Risk of Clinical Fractures: A Nationwide Case-Control Study," was published online in the Journal of AIDS (2014; 66(1):90-95).