BONE QUALITY FACTOR-ANALYSIS - A NEW NONINVASIVE TECHNIQUE FOR THE MEASUREMENT OF BONE-DENSITY AND BONE STRENGTH

The sensitivity of bone mineral density (BMD) as a predictor of fractu re risk is limited by the fact that this index does not take into acco unt the geometrical and material characteristics of bone, In contrast, both BMD and bone architecture influence the quality factor (QF), the fraction of the inverse of the energy lost in one cycle of deformatio n, In this study we have compared the sensitivity of a QF analyzer and dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) in detecting the changes induc ed by ovariectomy (OVX) on the QF, impact strength, and BMD of the fem ur of mature rats, QF and BMD were measured noninvasively before and 4 weeks after OVX or sham operation using a QF analyzer developed in ou r laboratory and a Hologic QDR 2000 bone densitometry, respectively, I mpact strength was measured in excised femurs at the end of the study, The in vivo short-term precision (coefficient of variation) of the QF analyzer was 1.9%. BMD and QF measurements were highly correlated (r = 0.80, p < 0.0001), At baseline, QF and BMD were similar in OVX and s ham-operated rats, At 4 weeks, BMD was 14.7 +/- 0.9% lower than at bas eline (p < 0.001) in OVX rats and 5.3 +/- 1.3% lower in sham-operated rats (p < 0.05), QF decreased 36.0 +/- 2.8% (p < 0.0001) in OVX and 10 .6 +/- 3.6% in sham rats (p < 0.01), As a result, at 4 weeks the diffe rence between sham-operated and OVX rats was larger (p < 0.05) by QF t han by BMD, Moreover, QF correlated better than BMD with impact streng th and the difference in impact strength between sham and OVX mice was closer to that in QF than that in BMD, These data demonstrate that QF analysis is a precise technique that is more sensitive than DXA in de tecting the changes in bone density and strength induced by OVX, QF an alysis may represent a new, simple, and economic technique for predict ing fracture risk.