High prevalence of low bone mineral density in patients within 10 years of onset of ankylosing spondylitis: A systematic review

Abstract

Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is a chronic inflammatory rheumatic disease. Decreased bone mineral density (BMD) is a common complication of AS, with a prevalence range of 19 to 62%. Many studies have shown decreased BMD in AS with long disease duration, but only a few studies investigated BMD in early AS. The prevalence of decreased BMD in early disease stages of AS has not yet been clearly described, and for that reason, we reviewed the literature which describes the prevalence of decreased BMD in AS patients with a short disease duration (<10 years). In this review, we included articles which used the modified New York criteria for the diagnosis of AS, included patients with a disease duration of less than 10 years, and used the WHO criteria for osteopenia and osteoporosis. Decreased BMD was defined as a T score