Background: Recently, increasing reports showed that the risk of fracture may be correlated with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). However, their results still remained controversial. Thus we performed a meta-analysis including 11 studies to estimate the risk factor of limb fracture in type 2 diabetes mellitus.
Materials and methods: Databases including PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library and Web of Science were searched to September, 2017. Risk Ratio (RR) with its 95% confidence intervals (CI) was used to evaluate the association between risk of limb fracture and type 2 diabetes mellitus. Two reviewers assessed the quality of all the included studies and extracted data for analysis independently.
Results: A total of 11 studies including 663,923 participants were included in this meta-analysis. Our analysis results showed that patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus had a significant association with risk of limb fracture (RR 1.18; 95% CI 1.02-1.35), including leg or ankle fracture (RR 1.80; 95% CI 1.13-2.87). Subgroup analysis showed individuals with type 2 diabetes had almost two-fold excessive risk of leg/ankle fracture in women and the pooled RR of leg/ankle fracture was 2.03 (95% CI 1.36-3.05; P = 0.0006).
Conclusions: The results of the present meta-analysis showed that individuals with type 2 diabetes mellitus had higher risk of limb fractures, and this relationship is more pronounced in leg or ankle fracture.
Keywords: diabetes mellitus; limb fracture; meta-analysis; risk factor.