The Effects Of Inherent Inaccuracies In DXA In Vivo BMD Measurements On Osteopenic/Osteoporotic Diagnostics/Prognositics

Funded Activity Summary

Osteoporosis (porous bone) and consequent associated bone fractures of mainly post-menopausal women and the elderly of both genders constitutes a significant, widespread and rapidly growing public health problem. It is already a major health-cost burden in Australia and worldwide and is set to increase dramatically over the next few decades as the proportion of the population at or above the osteoporosis-prone age increases sharply. Current diagnostic evaluations of osteoporosis, bone mineral status of the skeleton, mechanical integrity of bone, and bone fracture risk are mainly based on X-ray absorption measurements of a given individual's bone mineral density (BMD) using Dual-energy X-ray Absorptiometric (DXA) bone densitometer instrumentation. New drugs to retard, ameliorate, or reverse the low bone mineral density condition of osteoporosis are now becoming available, but cannot be prescribed unless sufficiently low BMD is demonstrated for a given patient. The efficacy of these drugs is usually held to be greatest at the earliest stage of osteoporosis (osteopenia) and their effectiveness evaluated on the basis of DXA-measured bone mineral density. The Chief Investigator of this project has already shown by published quantitative analysis and simulation studies that such BMD measurements are inherently inaccurate; that errors of 20% and greater can readily pertain, particularly for those patients at the early stages of osteoporosis and those at or above the osteoporosis-prone age -- the very individuals for whom bone mineral density values are often of paramount interest and concern. These systematic DXA inaccuracies can be large enough to either mask the presence of osteoporosis or lead to false diagnoses and patient monitoring results. The present project, for the first time anywhere, is desiged to quantitatively establish the extent of these inaccuracies using actual DXA densitometers utilizing sophisitcated and precise methods.

Funded Activity Details

Start Date: 01-01-2002

End Date: 01-01-2004

Funding Scheme: NHMRC Project Grants

Funding Amount: $411,980.00

Funder: National Health and Medical Research Council

Research Topics

ANZSRC Field of Research (FoR)

Medical Physics

ANZSRC Socio-Economic Objective (SEO)

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Other Keywords

Bone Mineral Density Measurements | Dual-Energy X-Ray Absorptiometric (DXA) In Vivo Measurements | Efficacy of Anti-Resorptive Drug Therapy | Health Related to Aging | In Vivo Bone Mineral Density for Diagnosis, Screening, etc. | Medical and Scientific Instrumentation | Osteoporosis | Osteoporosis Diagnosis/Screening/Prospective Studies | Skeletal Diseases and Disorders | Women's Health

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