Last Monday, an 84-year-old grandmother was seen in the clinic. She complained that she felt chest pain and difficulty in breathing after sneezing, and for several days she felt severe pain when getting up and turning over, which seriously affected her life. After the outpatient X-ray examination, the grandmother was found to have severe osteoporosis and a compression fracture of the lumbar spine. It sounds incredible, but it is not alarming, the culprit is severe osteoporosis. More than half of the people with osteoporosis have no symptoms and are only found to have osteoporosis when a fracture occurs. Osteoporosis is becoming a new epidemic that is quietly spreading around the world. Statistics show that about 200 million women worldwide suffer from osteoporosis, which is especially prevalent among the elderly, with about 1/3 of women between the ages of 60 and 70 suffering from osteoporosis; and about 2/3 of women aged 80 or above suffering from osteoporosis. According to the survey, the total number of osteoporosis patients in China has exceeded 70 million. Bone is the hardest organ in the body, if the bones are not strong enough, the human body may become a touch that is broken “glass man”. Osteoporosis is a metabolic disease of the bones that reduces bone mass on the one hand and destroys bone structure on the other, with consequences such as bone pain, fractures and degenerative changes in old age. If you have the following symptoms, it is likely that you have osteoporosis First, pain, especially pain in the lower back; second, the body becomes shorter, hunchbacked; third, especially prone to fractures; fourth, at the age of 45 or before has stopped menstruation, bone pain in the limbs, numbness in the hands and feet, muscle cramps, etc.. However, 50% of osteoporosis patients have no symptoms, and many are found only after a fracture has occurred. The population of osteoporosis patients is quite large, and there are many problems with the treatment. The common problems in the treatment of osteoporosis today: First, the lack of attention to the disease by doctors and patients, resulting in a low diagnosis rate. Second, poor patient compliance, inability to adhere to medication and non-compliance with physician recommendations for medication, significantly affects the effectiveness of treatment. For example, in the pharmacological treatment of osteoporosis, bisphosphonates can significantly improve bone density and reduce the risk of fracture, with better long-term safety. However, patients have poor compliance with oral bisphosphonates, making the treatment effect much less effective. In addition, some objective factors, such as complicated medication methods, drugs with upper gastrointestinal irritation, and more frequent medication, can also affect patient compliance. What should I do if I have a vertebral compression fracture in osteoporosis? In traditional treatment, patients can only rest in bed for a long time because of pain, control the structure of the diet, combined with drug anti-osteoporosis treatment, etc. The course of treatment is long and the effect is poor, and patients may develop complications such as heart and lung disease due to long-term bed rest, and also make the bone more osteoporotic. In recent years, our hospital has developed a minimally invasive surgery, which is simple, effective and easily accepted by such elderly patients, called percutaneous vertebroplasty. The operation can be performed under local anesthesia. Under the supervision of X-ray machine, a puncture needle of about 2mm in diameter is inserted into the vertebral body of the compression fracture, and then an appropriate amount of bone cement is injected into the fractured vertebral body, and after a few minutes, the patient’s pain symptoms can be reduced, and after an hour, the patient can get out of bed as usual, the pain disappears, and the daily life basically returns to the same as before the fracture. The patient can be discharged after two or three days of hospitalization.