VIENNA (Reuters Health) - Stroke patients have an 80 percent higher risk of fracturing a hip or thigh than people who have not had a stroke, researchers reported here at the European Symposium on Calcified Tissues (ESCT).

Dr. Frank de Vries, assistant professor at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands, presented results from a case-control study that enrolled 33,104 individuals drawn from a nationwide database.

The analysis included 6,763 patients with a first hip fracture and a 26,341-member comparison group who had not sustained a fracture. The two groups were matched for age, sex, and geographical region.

Overall, stroke patients had a 79 percent higher risk of fracturing a hip or thigh bone, the investigators found.

The risk of fracture was highest in patients who had sustained a stroke in the prior 3 months. In fact, fracture risk was nearly three times higher in this subgroup. "This finding implies that strategies that aim to prevent hip fracture should be started as soon as possible after a stroke," de Vries advised.

"Recommended strategies include further assessment of other risk factors for fracture," which include using the World Health Organization's FRAX tool to estimate risk, implementing fall prevention strategies, and treatment with bone-protecting agents.

The analysis also revealed that the increased fracture risk tended to be higher in stroke patients who were 70 years of age or younger. "Patients aged 70 or older are more likely to have other risk factors for hip fracture, and it's likely that the relative contribution of stroke to the overall risk of hip fracture decreases with age," de Vries explained.

Patients hospitalized for a stroke for longer than two weeks and patients who have a hemorrhagic stroke, in which a blood vessel in the brain bursts (rather than ischemic, in which the stroke is caused by a clot that blocks blood from carrying oxygen to the brain, causing the death of brain tissue, also increased risk of hip fracture.

"The main strength of the study is that the source population constituted 6 percent of the entire Dutch population, and no one was excluded because of socioeconomic status," he said.

On the other hand, the study was observational, which means that potentially important data, such as smoking status and body weight, could not be measured.