Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Diabetes mellitus and acromegaly are both associated with an increased risk of fracture caused by altered quality of bone. TBS represents an important tool for assessment of bone microarchitecture.

Objectives: The aim of this study is to assess the bone deterioration through the trabecular bone score (TBS) and to compare TBS and Z score between 2 groups of patients: acromegaly and diabetes mellitus.

Methods: This retrospective study included 2 groups of patients diagnosed and monitored in our clinic. 17 patients with diabetes mellitus between 45–77 years old (63.88 mean age; 32.04 mean BMI) were compared with 10 patients with acromegaly between 51–77 years old (61 mean age; 29.94 mean BMI). We selected the acromegalic patients without diabetes mellitus. In acromegalic group 3 patients had osteoporosis, 3 osteopenia and 4 had a T score in normal range while in diabetes group 3patients had osteoporosis, 2 osteopenia and 11 had a T score in normal range. The One way Anova test, used to compare TBS and Z score in the 2 groups, showed a lower mean TBS and hip Z score in acromegalic patients than in diabetic patients (1.260 vs 1.358, 95% CI, P < 0.05 and –0.4 vs 1.22, 95% CI, P < 0.01). Mean lumbar spine Z score didn’t show any significant difference between the 2 groups. The limitation of our study is the small number of patients.

Results: Our study shows that acromegaly is associated with a lower TBS and hip Z score than diabetes mellitus which means that acromegaly represents an additional risk factor for altered bone quality, added to insulin resistance, despite the older age of diabetic patients.