Evaluation of a gel-coupled quantitative ultrasound device for bone statusassessment

Objective. To evaluate a new gel-coupled calcaneal quantitative ultrasound system, Osteospace (Medilink, Montpellier, France), which was designed to a ssess the status of bone in the calcaneus. Methods. The study group consist ed of 215 healthy white women aged 20 to 85 years and 51 white women aged 6 0 to 86 years with osteoporotic fractures. Fifty-two healthy women aged 50 to 85 years were randomly selected from the healthy cohort as the control g roup. All the women had calcaneal quantitative ultrasonic measurements. The women with osteoporotic fractures and the control group also had proximal femur and lumbar anteroposterior spine bone mineral density measurements us ing dual X-ray absorptiometry. Bone mineral density was also measured in a subgroup of 54 women at the calcaneus. Results. There was a significant inv erse correlation of broadband ultrasound attenuation and speed of sound wit h age (P < .001). Short-term measurement precision values expressed as coef ficients - of variation were 1.72% for broadband ultrasound attenuation and 0.64% for speed of sound, and standardized shortterm precision values were 6.09% for broadband ultrasound attenuation and 3.87% for speed of sound. T he correlations between the quantitative ultrasonic parameters and calcanea l bone mineral density were 0.69 (P = .0001) for broadband ultrasound atten uation and 0.45 (P = .0008) for speed of sound. Both quantitative ultrasoni c parameters and all bone mineral density measurements of the hip and spine differed significantly between the control and osteoporotic fracture group s (P < .01). Age-, weight-, and height-adjusted odds ratios per SID decreas e-were as follows: broadband ultrasound attenuation, 1.79; speed of sound, 1.83; spine bone mineral density, 2.34; femoral neck bone mineral density, 1.69; and total hip bone mineral density, 1.85. The areas under the receive r operating characteristic curve for quantitative ultrasound parameters and bon e mineral density measurements were close, ranging from 0.75 to 0.80. Conclusions. This new quantitative ultrasound system can detect age- and me nopause-related influences on skeletal status and can discriminate healthy women from those with osteoporotic fractures in a manner comparable with th at of bone mineral density measurement by dual X-ray absorptiometry.