| To investigate the clinical usefulness of calcaneal measurement using dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry(DXA), the ability to detect bone loss and fracture risk were evaluated in comparison with spinal bone mineral density(BMD)measured using DXA and quantitative CT(QCT)and with calcaneal quantitative ultrasound(QUS). Furthermore, to investigate the region in calcaneus in which to detect bone change sensitively, the ability to detect bone loss and fracture risk were also evaluated using new regions of interest(ROIs) that were manually defined. The subjects were 165 healthy women, and 188 female patients with fracture, estrogen deficiency, and steroid-induced osteoporosis. Calcaneal BMD with some manually defined ROIs showed lower precision and less sensitivity in detecting bone loss than BMD measured with automatically defined ROIs. Calcaneal DXA, spinal DXA, and QCT demonstrated significant age-related bone loss, and all measurements could discriminate fracture cases from non-fracture cases. Calcaneal DXA could discriminate the bone loss associated with estrogen deficiency as well as spinal DXA. Furthermore, calcaneal measurements showed a greater ability to detect steroid-induced bone loss than spinal DXA, probably because this group included subjects of advanced age with spondylosis. In conclusion, calcaneal DXA is useful to assess BMD in subjects who are not suitable for spinal measurement, although the ability to detect age-related bone loss in calcaneal DXA is less than in spinal measurements. |
