Digital X-ray radiogrammetry

Digital X-ray radiogrammetry (DXR) is a method for measuring bone mineral density (BMD). Digital X-ray radiogrammetry is based on the old technique of radiogrammetry. In DXR the cortical thickness of the three middle metacarpal bones in the hand is measured in a digital X-ray image by a computer and is through a geometrical operation converted to bone mineral density. The BMD is corrected for porosity of the bone, estimated by a texture analysis performed on the cortical part of the bone.

Like other technologies for estimating the bone mineral density, the outputs are an areal BMD value, a T-score and a Z-score for assessing osteoporosis and the risk of bone fracture.

Digital X-ray radiogrammetry is primarily used in combination with digital mammography for osteoporosis screening, where same mammography machine that is used to acquire breast X-ray images is also used to acquire a hand image for BMD measurement. Due to high precision, DXR is also used for monitoring change in bone mineral density over time.

References

External links


This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 1/4/2014. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.