Estimation of femoral neck bone mineral density by ultrasound scanning: Preliminary results and feasibility

Aim of this paper was to assess the diagnostic accuracy of a novel ultrasound (US) approach for femoral neck densitometry. A total of 173 female patients (56-75 years) were recruited and all of them underwent a dual X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) of the proximal femur and an US scan of the same anatomical district. Acquired US data were analysed through a novel algorithm that performed a series of spectral and statistical analyses in order to calculate bone mineral density employing an innovative method. Diagnostic accuracy of US investigations was quantitatively assessed through a direct comparison with DXA results. The average diagnostic agreement resulted pretty good (85.55%), with a maximum (88.00%) in correspondence of the youngest investigated patients (56-60 y). Overall, diagnostic accuracy showed only minimal variations with patient age, indicating that the proposed approach has the potential to be effectively employable for osteoporosis diagnosis in the whole considered age interval.