Bone Metabolism in Patients with Hidradenitis Suppurativa: A Case-control Study

Hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) is a chronic inflamma-tory disease of the hair follicles. The aim of this case -control study was to assess whether HS is associated with disturbances in trabecular bone score, bone mi-neral density, bone remodelling markers, and calcio-tropic hormones. A total of 81 patients and 79 controls of similar age and sex were included. Demographic, anthropometric, laboratory data, trabecular bone score, bone mineral density, serum 25-hydroxyvita-min D (25OHD), serum amino-terminal pro-peptide of type 1 collagen (PINP), and C-terminal telopeptide of type 1 collagen (CTX) concentrations were asses-sed in both groups. Patients with HS had lower serum 25OHD levels than controls, and approximately 62% of them had vitamin D deficiency. Serum PINP was in-creased and CTX was decreased in patients with HS. Fully adjusted trabecular bone score values were lo-wer in patients with HS compared with controls. Ad-justed lumbar bone mineral density was similar in HS and controls, whilst total hip bone mineral density was lower in patients with HS. There were no statistical dif-ferences regarding disease severity in terms of 25OHD, serum turnover markers, bone mineral density, or tra-becular bone score values. This study shows that pa-tients with HS have lower trabecular bone score and total hip bone mineral density values than population -based controls. In addition, the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency is high in subjects with HS.