Association of Body Mass Index with Long-Term All-Cause Mortality in Patients Who Had Undergone a Vertebroplasty for a Vertebral Compression Fracture

We aimed to investigate the association between preoperative body mass index (BMI) and postoperative long-term mortality in patients who underwent a vertebroplasty. We retrospectively enrolled patients with a vertebral compression fracture who underwent a vertebroplasty between May 2013 and June 2020 in a medical center in Taiwan. The survival status of the study sample was confirmed by the end of March 2021. Cox-proportional hazard models were conducted to examine the effects of being overweight/obese (>= 25 kg/m(2) vs. <25 kg/m(2)) and BMI (as a continuous variable) on all-cause mortality after adjusting for age, sex, history of smoking, diabetes, hypertension, chronic kidney disease, and osteoporosis. A total of 164 patients were analyzed (mean age 75.8 +/- 9.3 years, male 25.6%, mean BMI 24.0 +/- 4.1 kg/m(2)) after a median follow-up of 785 days. Compared with a BMI < 25 kg/m(2), a BMI >= 25 kg/m(2) was associated with a significantly lower risk of all-cause mortality (HR 0.297, 95% CI 0.101 to 0.878, p = 0.028). These findings were consistent when BMI was examined as a continuous variable (HR 0.874, 95% CI 0.773 to 0.988, p = 0.031). A low BMI (<22 kg/m(2)) should be considered as a risk factor for postoperative long-term mortality in this ageing population.

Automated summary

The study found that in patients undergoing vertebroplasty, a BMI >= 25 kg/m2 was associated with a lower risk of mortality, while a low BMI (<22 kg/m2) may be a risk factor for postoperative long-term mortality in this aging population.