Serum testosterone level in elderly men as a risk factor for osteoporosis

Abstract EN

Most of osteoporotic studies have been carried out in women and there may be a lack of awareness of the problem in men.

Also there have been few studies of risk factors and potential preventive strategies.

So this study aimed at assessing testosterone level in elderly males and to determine if it is considered among the risk factors for osteoporotic fractures.

The study was conducted on 30 patients suffering from degenerative joint disease with a mean age of 71.1 years and 30 patients with hip fracture age and sex matched as a control group.

The following investigations were done for both groups: measurement of serum level of testosterone by Enzyme linked immuno-sorbent assay (ELISA), determination of alkaline phosphatase, acid phosphatase both total and prostatic and detection of serum albumin level.

Results of our study showed that the level of testosterone and serum albumin were significantly lower in the control group than the study group.

There was a highly inverse significant correlation between the level of testosterone and alkaline phosphatase as well as total acid phosphatase level, in the control group (p<0.001).

There was no significant correlation between the same parameters in the study group.

Also there was a highly significant positive correlation (p<0.001) in the control group between the level of albumin and testosterone but no such correlation in the study group.

There was no significant correlation between the age of the patients and testosterone level in both groups.

We concluded that measurements of testosterone level is a simple and good indicator for the detection of osteoporosis in elderly men and could be considered as one of the risk factors for the occurrence of hip fractures in this group.