MONDAY, Oct. 26, 2020 (HealthDay News) — The COVID-19 pandemic may have negatively impacted osteoporosis management, according to a study published online Oct. 14 in Osteoporosis International.
Eugene V. McCloskey, M.D., from the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom, and colleagues quantified the global impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on management of osteoporosis by examining changes in the usage of online FRAX fracture risk assessments before and after the declaration of the pandemic. Google Analytics data were evaluated for daily sessions on the FRAX website from November 2019 to April 2020.
The researchers found that from February to April 2020, the FRAX website recorded 460,495 sessions from 184 countries, with 210,656 sessions in February alone. The number of sessions fell in March by 23.1 percent and in April by 58.3 percent, a pattern not observed for the same period in 2019. There were smaller reductions seen in Asia, partly due to earlier and less-marked nadirs in some countries (China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Vietnam). In Europe, 24 of 31 countries reduced usage by at least 50 percent in April, while seven countries showed smaller reductions (range −2.85 to −44.1 percent). There was no significant relationship observed between the reduction in FRAX usage and measures of disease burden such as COVID-19-attributed deaths per million.
“The analysis suggests that impact may relate to the societal and health care measures taken to ameliorate the pandemic,” the authors write.
Several authors disclosed financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry.
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