COMPARISON BETWEEN A NEW ULTRASOUND DENSITOMETER AND SINGLE-PHOTON ABSORPTIOMETRY

Bone mass measurements were performed in a group of 100 healthy women (ages 22-74 years) with both a densitometric technique measuring ultra sound bone velocity (UBV) at the distal metaphyses of the first phalan ges of the hand and single-photon absorptiometry (SPA) applied at the distal forearm and ultradistal radius, A significant (p < 0.00001) dif ference was found in both UBV and bone mineral density (BMD) values be tween premenopausal and postmenopausal women. Simple regression analys is showed a highly significant relationship (p < 0.0001) between UBV m easured at proximal phalanges and BMD measured at the distal forearm ( r = 0.693) and ultradistal radius (r = 0.643), There was no correlatio n between age and both UBV and BMD in premenopausal women. By contrast , a significant correlation was found between UBV and age in postmenop ausal women (p < 0.0001; r = 0.510). A similar correlation with age wa s found for BMD measured at the distal forearm (p < 0.0001; r = 0.458) and ultradistal radius (p ( 0.0002; r = 0.435). Changes of UBV were a lso significantly related to years since menopause (p < 0.0001; r = 0. 526), as were BMD variations at the distal forearm (p < 0.0001; r = 0. 451) and ultradistal radius (p < 0.008; r = 0.402). The reproducibilit y of the methods (coefficient of variation) was 0.46% for UBV and 0.92 % for SPA. Our findings seem to indicate that UBV measured at the phal anges may have the same clinical applications as BMD measured at the d istal forearm and ultradistal radius.