Background and purposePrevious national epidemiological data on the characteristics and trends of patients with ankle fractures have been limited. We therefore analyzed data on Swedish inpatients with ankle fractures in this nationwide population study, based on data from 1987 through 2004.Patients and methodsData on all inpatients aged 15 years and older with ankle fracture were extracted from the Swedish National Patient Register for the period 1987–2004.ResultsWe identified 91,410 hospital admissions with ankle fracture, corresponding to an annual incidence rate of 71 per 105 person-years. During the study period, the number of hospital admissions increased by 0.2% annually, mainly from increase in fracture incidence in the elderly women. Mean age at admission was 45 (SD 19) years for men and 58 (18) for women. The major mechanism of injury was falling at the same level (64%).InterpretationThis nationwide study of inpatients with ankle fractures showed an increase in fracture incidence, particularly in elderly women.

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[Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] were not correlated within each orthopedic group (p > 0.1 for all groups), nor for the pooled population (p = 0.12). The distribution of [Formula: see text] was found significantly different among the different orthopedic groups (p = 0.0046) -also for [Formula: see text] (p = 0.022). The positive and negative treatment predictive values for [Formula: see text] were 66.7 % and 77.8 %, respectively. Corresponding values for [Formula: see text] were 25 % and 33.3 % CONCLUSIONS: The [Formula: see text] obtained from dynamic [F]-fluoride-PET imaging is a promising predictive factor to evaluate changes in bone healing in response to TSF treatment.