Monday, 23 October 2017

Bone Mineral Density Measurement

Bone/ skeletal gives the structural strength to a body and also helps to protect the internal organs and fragile of body tissues.  So called, osteoporosis is a kind of metabolic bone disease which characterized by the excessive bone loss associated with an increased risk of fractures. Osteoporosis has been defined as a “disease characterized by low bone mass and micro-architectural deterioration of bone tissue, leading to enhanced bone fragility and a consequent increase in fracture risk”. Osteoporosis effect the millions of the people worldwide and have major impact on the healthcare resources.  Osteoporosis represents a major non-communicable disease of today and is set to increase markedly in the future. There is underutilization of the measures available to combat the disease and there is therefore a need for assessment of best practices in prevention and treatment, since the adoption of these across countries can potentially result in significant reductions in the burden of this disease.

The description of osteoporosis captures the notion that low bone mass is an important component of the risk of fracture, but other abnormalities such as micro-architectural deterioration contribute to skeletal fragility. Ideally, clinical assessment of the skeleton should capture all these determinants of fracture risk, but at present the assessment of bone mass is the only aspect that can be readily measured in clinical practice, and forms the cornerstone for the general management of osteoporosis being used for diagnosis, risk prediction, and monitoring of patients on treatment.

In India 29.9% of woman and 24.3% of man between the ages of 20 and 79 years have low bone mineral density (BMD), while among people more than 50 year of age 50% of a woman and 36 % of man have osteoporosis.

A verity of the diagnosis technique are present which are clinically used for the measurement of the bone mineral content (BMC) or bone mineral density (BMD). Photon absorptiometry based technique has been used in early 1980s, which are single photon absorptiometry SPA, dual photon absorptiometry (DPA). This technique of the bone assessment uses the radionuclide source like 125I, 153Gd etc. this photon based techniques are suppressed by the x-ray based technique like single energy x-ray absorptiometry (SEXA/SXA) and dual x-ray absorptiometry (DEXA/DXA). The DXA become the gold standardof the assessment of the bone and for the diagnosis of the osteoporosis. Apart from the DXA quantitative computed tomography (QCT) are also used mostly as the substitute of DXA. However due to the cost and complexity QCT has not been used as the primary method for the diagnosis of the osteoporosis. Ultrasonic method is also clinically consider as the diagnosis of the osteoporosis. Some of the radiographic such as radiographic absorptiometry method can also be used for the measurement of the BMD. Scattering method such as Compton-Scatter Imaging Methods, Fixed-Point Compton-Scatter Methods etc. can also use as bone densitometer.

Laser based technique also present in the literature which can be used for the measurement of the BMD like Dual x-ray and laser (DXL). DXL uses the x-ray energy in combination of the laser which uses to measure the object thickness in order to determine all the tissue component. Spectroscopy technique can also provide the batter prediction of the osteoporosis. Raman based technique has been used for the measurement of the BMD but clinically it has not been started. However some of the instrument like spatially offset Raman spectroscopy (SORS) are in the clinical trial stage, which be used for the measurement of BMD in finger, heel and other peripheral part. As for my knowledge Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIF) and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMRS) are also used in the laboratory for the BMD measurement but clinically not accepted till date.

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