Shin YW, et al. - The association between bone mineral density and the intracranial aneurysm was assessed. The authors concluded that bone mineral density could be correlated with the presence, size, and multiplicity of an intracranial aneurysm. The study findings gave evidence for shared pathophysiology between an intracranial aneurysm and bone fragility.

• The authors conducted a cross-sectional study with 14328 patients.
• These patients underwent brain magnetic resonance angiography and bone mineral densitometry as a part of a health examination at a specialized center for comprehensive health examination in Seoul, the largest metropolitan area in the Republic of Korea, between December 2004 and November 2015.
• They included 12785 patients in the analysis after excluding patients with insufficient clinical information (n = 1102) and with ambiguous intracranial arterial lesion (n = 441).
• Using dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry, bone mineral density was measured at the lumbar vertebrae (L1 to L4), femur neck, and total hip.
• They used multiple logistic regression or linear regression to examine the association between tertiles of bone mineral density and the presence, size, and multiplicity of intracranial aneurysms.
• In secondary analyses, postmenopausal women and men 50 years and older (n = 8722) were examined because they were particularly at risk of decreased bone mineral density.

• 472 patients (3.7%) had intracranial aneurysms among 12785 patients in the study (7242 women [56.6%]; mean [SD] age, 54.8 [10.1] years).
• The authors found an association between lower bone mineral density and an increased risk of harboring intracranial aneurysm.
• After adjusting for age, sex, and vascular risk factors, odds ratios for the highest compared with the lowest bone mineral density tertile were 1.30 (95% CI, 1.03-1.64) in the lumbar spine, 1.30 (95% CI, 1.03-1.64) in the femoral neck, and 1.27 (95% CI, 1.01-1.60) in the total hip, in multivariable logistic regression analyses.
• The lowest tertile of bone mineral density in the lumbar spine was associated with an increased log-transformed size of aneurysm (β, 0.196; SE, 0.047) in a linear regression model adjusted for age, sex, and vascular risk factors.
• These associations were more definite and a low T score (< 1 SD) was additionally associated with multiple aneurysms (OR, 1.84; 95% CI, 1.05-3.30) after adjusting for age, sex, and vascular risk factors in secondary analyses.