Abstract
Twelve blood parameters were studied in five groups of women totalling 120 subjects--group I: 26 blood donors (average age 45.2 years, range 23-66); group II: 18 patients with various cerebral, cardiovascular, or infectious illnesses (average age 79.9 years, range 66-92); group III: 28 patients with femoral neck fractures (average age 79.4 years, range 56-95); group IV: 12 patients with hip osteoarthrosis (average age 71.7 years, range 60-87); group V: 36 patients with vertebral crush fractures associated with postmenopausal and involutional osteoporosis (average age 63.0 years, range 51-75). The parameters measured were total proteins, albumin, total, alpha 1, alpha 2, beta, and gamma globulins, total calcium, phosphates, alkaline phosphatase, bilirubin, and haemoglobin. Statistical analysis showed that each group differed from the others even with adjustment for age. Among the discriminant parameters, serum albumin had a distinctive position. Significantly high concentrations of serum albumin in the group with osteoarthrosis raise the question of the possible existence of a population prone to osteoarthrosis in whom the serum albumin level may reflect a special nutritional state associated with the well known bone density in subjects with hip osteoarthrosis. Albumin values in patients with femoral neck fractures are lower than normal but non-significantly. The difference between the group with vertebral crush fractures and that with femoral neck fractures seems to be due to age.