A personal perspective on fracture risk assessment tools

The World Health Organization and the Foundation for Osteoporosis Research and Education have each recently posted fracture risk assessment tools on Web sites. To be most useful, these tools need to provide risk data in a form that is easily used by clinicians as they discuss treatment options with their patients. This article critiques these two tools and offers clinicians suggestions for key elements that should be included in fracture risk reports. Reports based on risk assessment tools need to provide data in a meaningful form that patients can easily grasp. Much more than risk numbers are needed, and, ideally, fracture risk tools should be integrated into bone densitometry reporting or placed into comprehensive, user-friendly, decision aids.