R. Strelitzki et Jg. Truscott, An evaluation of the reproducibility and responsiveness of four 'state-of-the-art' ultrasonic heel bone measurement systems using phantoms, OSTEOPOR IN, 8(2), 1998, pp. 104-109
This paper evaluates four modern ultrasonic heel bone scanners: the Osteome
ter DTU-one, Hologic Sahara, CUBA Clinical and Lunar Achilles+. Six phantom
s, ranging in porosity from 50% to 83%, were used to evaluate the range of
values of broadband ultrasonic attenuation (BUA), speed of sound (SOS) and
Stiffness/quantitative ultrasound index (where available) from each machine
. Differences in inter-system variability between the lowest and highest po
rosity phantoms up to a factor of 3.8 were demonstrated. The reproducibilit
y of each system was measured using a single phantom and gave values of 0.0
3-0.15% for SOS, 0.39-1.6% for BUA and 0.73-1.11% for Stiffness. This contr
asted with values of range normalized standard deviation (CX) of 0.2-1.19%
for SOS, 0.71-1.86% for BUA and 0.83-1.12% for Stiffness when the output ra
nge of the measurement is taken into account. Measures of all quantities di
ffered between machines and care should be taken when expressing and compar
ing results from different systems.