Professor Vladyslav Povoroznyuk, passed away on June 12, 2021 at the age of 66 years.

He was known as the acting President of the Ukrainian Association of Osteoporosis, President of the Ukrainian Association of Andropause, Menopause, Bone and Joint Disease; the Board member of the International Osteoporosis Foundation; Head of the Ukrainian Division of the European Vitamin D Association (EVIDAS), Head of the Department of Clinical Physiology and Pathology of the Locomotor Apparatus of State Institution «D.F. Chebotarev Institute of Gerontology», NAMS of Ukraine, Director of the Ukrainian Scientific Medical Centre of Osteoporosis, Honoured scientist and technology expert of Ukraine, Member of ACR, ECTS, EMAS, EULAR, ISCD, ISSAM, OARSI, SICOT; the Editor-in-Chief of the “Pain. Joints. Spine”, “Problems of Osteology”, and “International Osteological Journal”, member of the editorial board of “Problems of Aging and Longevity”, “Gerontechnology”, “Gerontologija” (Lithuania), “Medix.Antiaging”, “Ukrainian Rheumatologic Journal”, “Orthopaedics, Traumatology, Endoprosthetics” (Ukraine) journals and others.

Professor Povoroznyuk was born and raised in the village of Sydory Velykopolovetsky (presently, Bilotserkivsky) district, Kyiv region, Ukraine. He graduated from O. О. Bohomolets Kyiv Medical Institute in 1977 and began his scientific career as a junior research fellow in the Institute of Gerontology. In 1988, he defended the PhD thesis and in 1999 he defended the Doctoral thesis “Osteoporosis in the Ukrainian population: risk factors, clinic, diagnostics, and treatment”. From 1992 until the last day of his life, he headed the department of clinical physiology and pathology of the locomotor apparatus.

Professor Povoroznyuk’s field of academic interests included epidemiology, pathogenesis, diagnostics, prevention and treatment of locomotor apparatus, its age-related changes, and influence of the accompanying pathologies of various organs and systems.

Vladyslav Povoroznyuk initiated the Ukrainian epidemiological study of various population groups affected by osteoporosis and its complications. The frameworks of this study included peak bone mass formation in Ukrainian children and adolescents, the rates of bone loss among the man and women of various ages. He masterminded the creation of a reference database for the bone tissue of the Ukrainian population using the X-ray and ultrasound densitometry. Vladyslav Povoroznyuk anchored the research in the prevalence of osteoporosis and its complications among the Ukrainian population, age and sexual features, exogenic and endogenic factors influencing the bone tissue. The new diagnostic methods of evaluating the rate of bone aging were developed, the first automated “Osteolog” work station created, the bio-active supplements preventing the osteoporosis occurrence produced, the regional centers of osteoporosis prevention and treatment all put into place due to his efforts. Professor Povoroznyuk commissioned the Ukrainian translation and adaptation of the IOF’s one-minute questionnaire and held studies to prove its validity. Also, he was organized All-Ukrainian STOP study of the incidence of osteoporotic fractures in Ukraine and was actively involved in the development of the Ukrainian FRAX model which created in October 2016.

Over the about, professor Povoroznyuk initiated the epidemiological study of vitamin D deficiency and insufficiency among the Ukrainian population and its influence on the bone-muscular system. Vladyslav Povoroznyuk was invited as an expert to supervise the «Practical guidelines for supplementation of vitamin D and treatment of deficits in Central Europe: Recommended vitamin D intakes in general population and groups being at risk of vitamin D deficiency», published in 2013. From 2015, professor Povoroznyuk was the head of the Ukrainian division of EVIDAS.

Moreover, professor Povoroznyuk was involved in the trabecular bone score (TBS) study: normative parameters of TBS were established for Ukrainian people of various ages. He is a pioneer on sarcopenia study in Ukraine that established normative data of skeletal muscle system of women belonging to various age groups, sarcopenia’s development mechanisms, “cut-off’ of low muscle mass, and frequency of sarcopenia in older women.
In 1996, prof. Povoroznyuk promoted the creation of the Ukrainian Association of Osteoporosis; he was also elected its president. In 1998, under the aegis of the Ukrainian Association of Osteoporosis he founded the Ukrainian Scientific-Medical Centre of Osteoporosis providing consultation and treatment to people all over the country. Besides that, Professor Povoroznyuk initiated the creation of Patients’ Society “Ukraine without osteoporosis and fractures”. Both organizations are actively involved in the annual International osteoporosis days and other patient-oriented events.

Professor Povoroznyuk promoted the development of the counterpart associations of osteoporosis in Moldova, Belarus, and others. He was invited to lecture and hold various education courses on age-related bone-muscular system diseases in Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Mongolia.
Professor Povoroznyuk held an annual education course for the practitioners “Modern principles of diagnostics, prophylaxis, and treatment of the bone-muscular diseases” (since 2006), informational and training course “Diagnostics and treatment of osteoporosis” and Conference of the Young Scholars (since 2007), school-workshops “Back pain”, “Osteoporosis in the rheumatologist’s practice”, and a series of scientific-practical conferences “Days of gerontology and geriatrics in Ukraine” (since 2010), “Deficiency and insufficiency of vitamin D in clinical practice” (since 2014), the annual International “Bone-muscular system and age” school in Yaremche (since 2008), attended by the eminent European scientist.

Since 2015 Professor Povoroznyuk masterminded the annual International Symposium “BONE & JOINT DISEASES AND AGE” in Lviv (Ukraine). This event was a result of a partnership among the Ukrainian Association of Osteoporosis, the Austrian Society of Bone and Mineral Research, and the Slovak Society for Osteoporosis and Metabolic Bone Diseases. In 2016, the Symposium was attended by the president of the European Society for Clinical & Economic Aspects of Osteoporosis, Osteoarthritis and Musculoskeletal Diseases (Reginster J.-Y.), the honorary president of the International Association of Osteoporosis (Kanis J. A.), and leading scientists from Europe and the United States.
Professor Povoroznyuk is an author or co-author of about 800 articles, twenty monographs, among which – “Osteoporosis in Ukraine”, “Glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis”, “Osteoporosis: epidemiology, clinical features, diagnostics, prophylaxis and treatment”, “Menopause and osteoporosis”, “Menopause and bone-muscular disorders”, “Pamidronic acid in the treatment of bone-muscular disorders”, “Experimental osteoporosis”, “Sarcopenia”, 46 local guidelines and 35 copyright certificates in epidemiology and methods of diagnostics, prophylaxis, and treatment of primary and secondary osteoporosis and its complications, osteoarthritis, gout and back pain. Since 2007, Professor Povoroznyuk also edited a collection of studies for the practitioners “Modern principles of diagnostics, prophylaxis, and treatment of bone-muscular disorders in people of various ages”. He was co-author of such European editions as «New Europe: Consensus on Osteoporosis» (2003), «The Eastern European & Central Asian Regional Audit Epidemiology, costs & burden of osteoporosis in 2010».

Professor Povoroznyuk made a considerable input in locomotor apparatus diseases study, in gerontology development in our country. He was a world-known scientist. He will always be in the memory of his family, colleagues, and friends and doctors not only in Ukraine.