A new Fracture Risk Assessment Tool that includes bone microarchitecture measures outperformed the current tool that uses areal bone mineral density at the femoral neck, according to study findings.
The Microarchitecture Fracture Risk Assessment Calculator (µFRAC), which was built using machine learning, determines fracture risk for men using high-resolution peripheral quantitative CT (HR-pQCT), according to Steven K. Boyd, PhD, professor at the McCaig Institute for Bone and Joint Health at University of Calgary in Canada. Boyd said this prediction method differs from other common fracture

WAIKOLOA, Hawaii — At Orthopedics Today Hawaii, Volker Musahl, MD, spoke about STABILITY II data and ways to reduce second ACL injuries in young athletes.
“One big problem is the tibial slope. If the slope is higher — high meaning 12° or higher — then the risk of ACL, the current ACL injury and also native ACL tear is much higher,” Musahl, Blue Cross of Western Pennsylvania Professor and chief of sports medicine at UPMC Freddie Fu Sports Medicine Center at University of Pittsburgh. said.
He said the goal for 2026 is to decrease the second ACL injury rate, which is

Eric Donnenfeld’s corneal health case presentations and panel discussion at OSN New York are always popular with meeting attendees and provide valuable clinical insights.
The cases presented in 2025 included infectious keratitis after PRK, lagophthalmos and corneal hypoesthesia with secondary dry eye. I will share a few comments on each of these topics.
Infectious keratitis is rare after LASIK when a femtosecond laser is used to create the flap, with a reported incidence of less than one case per 10,000. With surface ablation, in some reports, infectious keratitis incidence approaches one per

Certain depressive symptoms experienced during midlife were tied to a greater risk for dementia, with some increasing the risk by around 50%, according to recently published data.
The results “show that dementia risk is linked to a handful of depressive symptoms rather than depression as a whole,” study lead author Philipp Frank, PhD, from the University College London in the U.K., said in a press release. “This symptom-level approach gives us a much clearer picture of who may be more vulnerable decades before dementia develops.”
Frank and colleagues explained that

Patient-reported fatigue prior to cancer treatment could be used as a biomarker for identifying which individuals will develop serious or fatal adverse events.
A retrospective analysis showed patients who reported more baseline fatigue had two to three times greater likelihood of having grade 3 or worse toxicities, and those who had the worse fatigue had approximately five times greater odds of having grade 5 toxic effects.
“It’s a finding that strongly suggests that patients are telling us something meaningful at baseline about what they might experience in the course of their treatment,”

People who believe ChatGPT may be effective for mental health support are more likely to use it and less likely to report any stigma with its use, researchers from Edith Cowan University reported in a study published in Behavioral Sciences.
Despite this support and the growing use of AI chatbots in the general population, these tools should only augment and not replace professional help, according to the researchers.
Healio spoke with Ravi Hariprasad, MD, MPH, board-certified psychiatrist and founder and CEO of Zenara Health, who was not involved in the study, about what these findings mean and

A preventive care strategy following Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes recommendations reduced moderate or severe AKI risk after major surgery, according to data published in The Lancet.
According to Alexander Zarbock, MD, professor in the department of anesthesiology and intensive care medicine at University of Münster in Germany, and colleagues, KDIGO recommends several actions for the prevention of AKI:
However, these recommendations are often underused in AKI care after surgery, the researchers wrote.
“Although we found several high-quality studies on this topic, there was no

Elevated dementia risks among older adults were associated with weaker and more fragmented circadian rest-activity rhythms and with later peak activity times, according to data published in Neurology.
These findings may enable wearable ECG monitors that include accelerometers to assist in dementia prediction, Wendy Wang, MPH, PhD, assistant professor, Peter O’Donnell Jr. School of Public Health at UT Southwestern Medical Center, and colleagues wrote.
“Prior research conducted by others has suggested that circadian rhythm disturbances may be a risk factor for neurodegenerative disease,” Wang

As we start 2026, orthopedic surgeons have a remarkable opportunity to remain at the forefront of the innovation of joint replacement surgery for years to come.
CMS has opened the door to performing complex joint replacement procedures, including revision total hip arthroplasty and total knee arthroplasty and partial shoulder revisions, in ASCs. The CY 2026 Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System and Ambulatory Surgical Center Payment System final rule removed numerous musculoskeletal procedures from the inpatient-only list and added them to the ASC covered procedures list. The approval

Although more women than men have pulmonary arterial hypertension, several PAH medications are teratogenic, according to a presentation at the annual Role of Multi-Modality Cardiac Imaging in Women CME program.
Due to this characteristic of PAH treatments and studies showing that pregnancy in patients with PAH can result in unfavorable outcomes for both the mother and child, Mrinalini Krishnan, MD, FACC, presenter and associate director of the advanced pulmonary hypertension, right heart failure and CTEPH program at Temple University Hospital, said pregnancy in this population is “generally