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Studies have shown that radiologists tend not to report vertebral fractures when interpreting computed tomography (CT) scans of the chest and abdomen, which are typically ordered for reasons other than back pain. Investigators assessed the extent of underreporting in this retrospective study of about 2000 adults (mean age, 59) who happened to have undergone both abdominal CT scanning and dual x-ray absorptiometry (to measure bone mineral density) within 6 months of each other at a major U.S. medical center. The researchers carefully reviewed sagittal reconstructions of all CT scans to identify vertebral fractures.
Ninety-seven patients (5%) had one or more moderate or severe vertebral compression fractures. In 81 of these 97 patients, the fr…