P3F-1 Nonlinear Ultrasound Detection of Osteoporosis

Osteoporosis is usually diagnosed by measuring the bone mass density of certain parts of the skeleton. Standard methods are based on X-ray measurements which depend on typically heavy equipment. Therefore more light-weight equipment is requested. Equipment based on ultrasound could be a viable contribution to obtain this. Some ultrasound methods described in the literature are based on broadband ultrasound attenuation, speed of sound and broadband ultrasound backscattering. As an extension of these linear methods, we have assumed that nonlinear phenomena will also be influenced by the same changes in the bone structure. In an earlier publication we have reported initial measurements indicating a correlation between bone mass density and 2nd harmonic ultrasound generation. Here we discuss the results of further and improved experiments with volunteers covering a range of T-score values as obtained by DEXA (dual energy X-ray absorptiometry). In addition to the 2nd harmonic amplitude variation with the degree of the disease, we have found a similar variation of the duration of this signal. We propose a numerical estimation of this variation