Correlation between digital radiography and dual-energy X-ray absorption for assessment of bone mineral density

Objective To determine the methodology and feasibility of digital radiography (DR)on bone mineral density assessment.Methods A total of 194 women from health check-up center with normal pelvic plain film by digital radiographic examination were enrolled in the study.Foci regarding the femoral neck (n=3),Ward triangle (n=1) and greater trochanter of femur (n=3) were selected with postprocessing DR workstation for further computation of average pixel density.Stratification was done based on age to determine the variation in pixel density,and Pearson' s analysis was applied to examine the correlation between pixel density and bone mineral density of each focus.Results Women of different age groups were featured by various DR pixel densities that decreased in conjunction with bone mineral density as the age increased.DR pixel densities of bilateral femoral necks (r=0.353 and 0.371,both P＜0.01),Ward triangle (r=0.460 and 0.466,both P＜0.01) and greater trochanters (r=0.484 and 0.433,both P＜0.01)were positively correlated with bone mineral density as assessed by dual X-ray absorption.Conclusion DR technology can be applied for assessment of hip bone mineral density. Key words: Bone mineral density; Femoral neck; Osteoporosis