The influence of age on the morphology of trochanteric fracture.

A series of 127 trochanteric femoral fractures was analyzed with respect to fracture type, age, and bone quality (osteoporosis). There was a continuous decrease in bone quantity (measured as femoral score) with age and a direct relation between bone quality and the severity of the pattern of the trochanteric fracture. The skeletal ageing process starts earlier in women. However, after the age of 85 years the process is more rapid in men. Consequently, the risk of sustaining a trochanteric fracture is greater in men than in women above this age. The increasing age of the population and the longer survival of the oldest people results in more unstable and more comminuted fractures, which have increased by a factor of nearly 3 during the past three decades.