ABSTRACT
The speed of sound (SOS) and the broadband ultrasound attenuation (BUA), as determined by quantitative ultrasound at the calcaneum, were correlated with the bone mineral density (BMD) measurements using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry at the femoral neck and the lumbar spine in 110 females. There were moderate correlations of 0.629, 0.623 and 0.594 between the BMD at the anterior-posterior lumbar spine, lateral lumbar spine and femoral neck with the SOS at the calcaneum (all P <0.001). The corresponding correlations with BUA were 0.646, 0.643 and 0.628 respectively (all P <0.001). This suggests that quantitative ultrasound may be reasonably accurate and useful for the assessment of osteoporosis.
Osteoporosis is well documented to be a significant determinant of the risk of fracture and its assessment in vivo has been based on various methods for measuring bone mineral density (BMD). Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) has proven so far to be reasonably precise (about 1% to 2%) and accurate (about 5%).
This article is available only as a PDF. Please click on “Download PDF” on top to view the full article.
