Bone Mineral Density Determination Using Digital Radiography

Abstract

There is a need for an improved bone mineral density measurement procedure for neonates. Currently, measurements are made using single photon absorptiometry (SPA). The poor reproducibility of this method means that it has little direct clinical diagnostic application and is therefore not suitable for diagnosing disease in individual patients. A technique using digital radiography has been developed to measure bone mineral density. Digital images of phantoms and chicken bones were acquired at two kvp settings of a digital angiographic unit. Digital information from water, aluminum and lucite phantoms were used to calculate effective mass attenuation coefficients of the phantom materials. These values were subsequently used in bone mineral density calculations of sections of the chicken bones. The bone mineral densities of the chicken bones obtained from the digital radiography method were compared to SPA measurements. The digital radiography method gave consistently higher bone mineral densities for the bones than SPA. This could be due to the differences in measurement technique as SPA scans a single slice whereas digital radiography images a large area of the bone.