Brisbane and Women’s Hospitals, Brisbane, and

The lifetime risk of a vertebral body compression fracture is 16 % for women and 5 % for men, and the incidence of osteoporotic fractures is expected to increase fourfold worldwide in the next 50 years.1 In Australia, the median incidence rate of symptomatic osteoporotic vertebral compression fractures has been calculated to be 111 per 100 000 persons per year. The total number of Australians estimated to have osteoporosis in 2001 was 1 871 795.2 If these figures remain stable, there should be approximately 2078 symptomatic vertebral fractures per year in Australia. Other causes of painful compression fracture include malignant involvement of the spinal column (metastasis, myeloma, and lymphoma), haemangioma, and vertebra