[Diagnosis of male osteoporosis]

Male osteoporosis is not rare because of the recent increase of elderly population. The diagnosis of male osteoporosis is based on BMD as well as in women. Although most of the cross-sectional studies have suggested that men fracture at higher BMD than women, recent prospective longitudinal studies show that the fracture risk increases as BMD decreases in men in the same way as that described in women. However, because of the different BMD distribution, the average BMD in men who fracture is higher than in women and to capture the same proportion of fractures in men, the cutoff BMD value needs to be higher than in women.