Abstract
Bone mineral densitometry (BMD) can be performed in any age group. Originally, BMD was utilized in elderly postmenopausal women for whom World Health Organization criteria for diagnosis of osteoporosis were determined. With the proliferation of treatment options for low bone mass, the utilization of BMD measurement has increased. In the premenopausal female BMD use and interpretation must be judicious and correlated to clinical findings. Children present a number of problems in the use and interpretation of BMD. Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry remains the gold standard for measurement of BMD.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
2001 NIH Consensus Development Panel. JAMA 285:785.
Cheng NG, Nicholson PH, Boonen S, et al. 1997 Prediction of vertebral strength in vitro by spinal bone densitometry and calcaneal ultrasound. J Bone Miner Res 12: 1721–1728.
Bouxsein ML, Courtney R, Hayes WC. 1995 Ultrasound and densitometry correlate with the failure loads of cadaveric femurs. Calcif Tissue Int 56:99–103.
Miller PD. 2003 Bone mass measurements. Clin Geriatric Med 19(2):281–297.
Link TM, Majumdar S. 2003 Osteoporosis imaging. Radiol Clin N Am 41: 813–839.
Lin YC, Lyle RM, Weaver CM, et al. 2003 Peak spine and femoral neck bone mass in young women. Bone 32(5):546–553.
Marshall D, Johnell O, Weidel H. 1996 Meta-analysis of how well measures of bone mineral density predict occurrence of osteoporotic fractures. BMJ 312(704): 1254–1259.
Kanis JA, Melton LJ 3rd, Christiansen, C., et al. 1994 The diagnosis of osteoporosis. J Bone Miner Res 9: 1137–1141.
2002 ISCD Development Conference. J Clin Densitom 5:S14.
Greenspan S, Maitland-Ramsey L, Myers E. 1996 Classification of osteporosis in the elderly is dependent on site specific analysis. Calcif Tissue Int 58(6):409–414.
Deng HW, Li JL, Li J, et al. 1998 Heterogeneity of bone density across skeletal sites and its clinical implications. J Clin Densitom 1(4):339–353.
Siris ES, Miller PD, Barrett-Connor E, et al. 2001 Identification and fracture outcomes of undiagnosed low bone mineral density in postmenopausal women, results of the National Osteoporosis Risk Assessment. JAM 286(22):2815–2822.
Tannenbaum N, Clark J, Schwartzman K, et al. 2002 Yield of laboratory testing to identify secondary contributors to osteoporosis in otherwise healthy women. J Clin Endocrinol Metab 87(10):31–4437.
Mazess RB, Collick B, Trempe J, Barden H, Hansen J. 1989 Performance evaluation of a dual energy x-ray bone densitometer. Calcif Tissue Int 44:228–232.
Genant HK, Engelsek K, Fuerst T, et al. 1996 Non-invasive assessment of bone mineral and structure: state of the art. J Bone Miner Res 11(6):707–730.
2004 ISCD Position Statement from the writing group for ISCD Position Development Conference of Osteoporosis in Men, Premenopausal Women and Children. J Clin Densitom 7(1):17.
Federal Register, Volume 63, no. 121 (HCFA-3004-IFC).
Staron R, Greenspan R, Miller T, et al. 1999 Computerized bone densitometric analysis: operator dependent errors. Radiology 211:467–470.
Engelke K, Gleur CC, Genant HK. 1995 Factors influencing short-term precision of dual x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) of spine and femur. Calcif Tissue Int 56:19–25.
Block J, Smith R, Gluer CC, et al. 1989 Models of spinal trabecular bone loss as determined by quantitative computed tomography. J Bone Miner Res 4:249–257.
Lang T, Keyek J, Heitz M, et al. 1997 volumetric quantitative computed tomography of the proximal femur: precision and relation to bone strength. Bone 21:101–108.
Njeh CF, Bovin CM, Langton CM. 1997 The role of ultrasound in the assessment of osteoporosis: a review. Osteoporos Int 7:7–22.
Fogelman I, Blake G. 2000 Different approaches to bone densitometry. J Nucl Med 41:2015–2025.
Gilsanz V. 1998 Bone density in children: A review of the available techniques and indications. Europ J Radiol 26:177–182.
Molgaard C. 1997 Whole body bone mineral content in healthy children and adolescents. Arch Dis Child 76:9–15.
Gafni RI, Baron J. 2004 Overdiagnosis of osteoporosis in children due to misinterpretation of dual energy x-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) J Pediatrics 144(2):253–257.
Leonard MB, Propert KJ, Zemel BS, et al. 1999 Discrepancies in pediatric bone mineral density reference data: Potential for misdiagnosis of osteopenia. J Pediatrics 135(2Pt 1): 182–188.
Bachrach LK, Hastie T, Wang M-C, et al. 1999 Bone mineral aquisition in healthy Asian, Hispanic, Black and Caucasian youth: a longitudinal study. J Clin Endocrinol Metab 84(12):4702–4712.
Freyschmidt J, Brossman J, Wiens J, Sternberg A. 2003 Borderlands of normal and early pathological findings in skeletal radiography, 5th Ed. Pelvis and hip chapter. Thieme, Stuttgart, Germany.
National Osteoporosis Foundation, Guide to Treatment and Prevention of Osteoporosis, www. NOF.org.
Watts NB. 1988 Osteoporosis. Am Fam Physician 38(5):193–207.
Theodorou D, Theodorou S. 2002 Dual energy x-ray absorptiometry in climical practice: application and interpretation of scans beyond the numbers. Clin Imaging 26: 43–49.
VanStaa TP, Leufkens HG, Cooper C. 2002 Does a fracture at one site predict later fracture? A British Cohort Study. Osteoporos Int 160:77.
Delmas PD, Genant HK, Crans GG, et al. 2003 Severity of prevalent fractures and the risk of subsequent vertebral and nonvertebral fractures: results from the MORE trial. Bone 33(4):522–532.
Genant HK, Jergas M, Palermo L, et al. 1996. Comparison of semiquantitative visual and quantitative morphometric assessment of prevalent and incident vertebral fractures in osteoporosis. The Study of Osteoporotic Fractures Research Group. J Bone Miner Res 11(7):984–986.
Weiner SN, Neumann DR, Rzeszotarski MS. 1989 Comparison of magnetic resonance imaging and radio-nuclide bone imaging of vertebral fractures. Clin Nucl Med 14:666.
Majumdar S, Thomasson D, Shimakawa A, Genant HK. 1991 Quantitation of the susceptibility artifacts between trabecular bone and bone marrow: experimental studies. Mag Reson Med 22:111–127.
Majumdar S, Genant HK. 1992 In vivo relationship between marrow T2® and trabecular bone density determined with chemical shift-selective asymmetric spin-echo sequence. J Magn Reson Imaging 2:209–219.
Majumdar S, Kothari M, Augat P, et al. 1998 High resolution magnetic resonance imaging: three dimensional trabecular bone architecture and biomechanical properties. Bone 22:445–454.
Chung H, Wehrli FW, Williams JL, Kugelmass SD. 1993 Relationship between NMR transverse relaxation, trabecular bone architecture and strength. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 90:10,250.
Muller R, Hildebrand T, Ruegsegger P. 1994 Non-invasive bone biopsy: a new method to analyze and display three dimensional structure of trabecular bone. Phys Med Biol 39:145–164.
Muller R, Hildebrand T, Ruegsegger P. 1996 Morphometric analysis of non-invasively assessed bone biopsies: comparison of high resolution computed tomography and histologic sections. Bone 2:215.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Richmond, B. Bone mineral densitometry measurement. Clinic Rev Bone Miner Metab 3, 95–102 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1385/BMM:3:2:095
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1385/BMM:3:2:095