Common Questions
How do you answer some of the FRAX clinical risk factor questions (ex. smoking) if you are unsure of the duration or amount?
Several of the clinical risk factors are dose and duration dependent in terms of fracture risk. This is true of individuals that smoke, drink alcohol, and who are on glucocorticoids. Also, patients with a history of multiple fractures are at higher risk than someone with only one fracture. Unfortunately, the FRAX models do not take into account that amount of detail due to lack of availability of information from all of the cohorts that were studied in the analyses. It is always important to use clinical judgment when interpreting probabilities.