Community-based evaluation of Saudi FRAX with and without BMD in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Osteoporosis is a growing health burden requiring early risk assessment. In Saudi adults ≥ 60 years, FRAX scores with and without BMD showed minimal reclassification, with most shifts toward higher risk in younger groups. FRAX without BMD offers reliable stratification, supporting its use as a first-line screening tool. METHODS: A retrospective cross-sectional study included patients aged ≥ 60 years attending family medicine clinics at King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Centre, Riyadh, undergoing DXA screening between January 1, 2016, and December 31, 2022. Baseline variables were age, sex, and BMI. FRAX variables assessed were family history of hip fracture (HF), prior fracture, smoking, glucocorticoid use, rheumatoid arthritis, and alcohol intake. Fracture risk was categorized using fixed and age-specific thresholds; differences in FRAX scores and reclassification patterns were evaluated. RESULTS: Among 1,429 patients (mean age 68.07 ± 6.62 years), FRAX scores for major osteoporotic fracture (MOF) and HF) differed significantly with and without BMD. Subgroup analysis revealed no significant differences within specific age ranges (70-75 years for MOF and 60-75 years for HF) or among men across all age groups. Reclassification occurred in a small subset of patients, predominantly shifting toward higher-risk categories, particularly in younger age groups. CONCLUSION: FRAX without BMD provides robust risk stratification, with minimal impact on reclassification across age categories. These results highlight its utility as a primary screening strategy, whereas BMD assessment may be reserved for cases requiring further refinement. PURPOSE: Osteoporosis is a skeletal disorder defined by reduced bone mineral density (BMD), commonly assessed by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA). The Fracture Risk Assessment Tool (FRAX) estimates 10-year fracture risk. Saudi Arabia was recently included in FRAX, enabling population-specific risk estimation. Notably, FRAX can be applied with or without BMD, but limited Saudi data exist comparing both methods.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".