Bone and joint involvement in genetic hemochromatosis: role of cirrhosis and iron overload.

These findings indicate the high prevalence of osteoarticular involvement in Italian patients with GH. Neither cirrhosis nor the amount of iron removed was associated with arthropathy. In contrast, in univariate analysis the risk of osteoporosis was significantly increased by liver cirrhosis. With multivariate analysis we found that osteoporosis was highly influenced by the degree of iron overload, playing an independent role in accelerating bone loss in patients with GH.