External Bone Size Is a Key Determinant of Strength-Decline Trajectories of Aging Male Radii

Given prior work showing associations between remodeling and external bone size, we tested the hypothesis that wide bones would show a greater negative correlation between whole-bone strength and age compared with narrow bones. Cadaveric male radii (n = 37 pairs, 18 to 89 years old) were evaluated biomechanically, and samples were sorted into narrow and wide subgroups using height-adjusted robustness (total area/bone length). Strength was 54% greater (p < 0.0001) in wide compared with narrow radii for young adults (<40 years old). However, the greater strength of young-adult wide radii was not observed for older wide radii, as the wide (R²= 0.565, p = 0.001), but not narrow (R²= 0.0004, p = 0.944) subgroup showed a significant negative correlation between strength and age. Significant positive correlations between age and robustness (R²= 0.269, p = 0.048), cortical area (Ct.Ar; R²= 0.356, p = 0.019), and the mineral/matrix ratio (MMR; R²= 0.293, p = 0.037) were observed for narrow, but not wide radii (robustness: R²= 0.015, p = 0.217; Ct.Ar: R²= 0.095, p = 0.245; MMR: R²= 0.086, p = 0.271). Porosity increased with age for the narrow (R²= 0.556, p = 0.001) and wide (R²= 0.321, p = 0.022) subgroups. The wide subgroup (p < 0.0001) showed a significantly greater elevation of a new measure called the Cortical Pore Score, which quantifies the cumulative effect of pore size and location, indicating that porosity had a more deleterious effect on strength for wide compared with narrow radii. Thus, the divergent strength–age regressions implied that narrow radii maintained a low strength with aging by increasing external size and mineral content to mechanically offset increases in porosity. In contrast, the significant negative strength–age correlation for wide radii implied that the deleterious effect of greater porosity further from the centroid was not offset by changes in outer bone size or mineral content. Thus, the low strength of elderly male radii arose through different biomechanical mechanisms. Consideration of different strength–age regressions (trajectories) may inform clinical decisions on how best to treat individuals to reduce fracture risk.