NEW YORK (Reuters Health) — While considerable attention has been given to women’s risk of suffering fractures as they age, a new study shows that once an older person has sustained a fracture there’s no significant difference between men and women in their risk of having another fracture.The report in the latest Journal of the American Medical Association confirms that men and women 60 years of age or older are at heightened risk for all types of fractures after sustaining an initial low-trauma fracture. Moreover, the risk appears to be greatest in the 5 to 10 years following the first fracture.

Dr. Jacqueline R. Center, from the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Darlinghurst, Australia, and colleagues therefore recommend early initiation of fracture prevention therapy for everyone who sustains a low-trauma fracture.

The findings are based on a study of 2245 women and 1760 men who were followed from 1989 to 2005. During this period, 905 women and 337 men suffered an initial fracture, the investigators note. Of these subjects, 253 women and 71 men had a repeat fracture.

The risk of recurrent fracture was comparable for men and women, with the equivalent of 57 and 62 cases occurring every year for every 1000 men and women, respectively, who suffered a prior fracture.

The increased risk of re-fracture persisted for up to 10 years after the original fracture.

“This is the first study, to our knowledge, to comprehensively examine all low-trauma fractures in a concurrent group of men and women aged 60 years and older over a 16-year period,” the authors conclude.

They say that awareness of osteoporosis and its treatment “particularly in relation to men, should be the focus of education initiatives.”