Characterization of human trabecular bone quantity and quality using confocal acoustic scanning

The objective of this work is to evaluate the newly developed scanning confocal acoustic diagnostic (SCAD) system in the assessment of bone mineral density (BMD) of human calcaneus and femoral neck. Results show that ultrasound attenuation (ATT) image obtained from SCAD represents bone mass distribution. High correlation (R=0.82) exists between SCAD determined broadband ultrasound attenuation (BUA) and dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) determined bone mineral density (BMD) for calcaneus. The BUA data from the calcaneus region is also highly correlated with BMD results for femoral neck (R=0.81), which is generally a site for assessing osteoporosis and predicting risk of bone fracture. These results demonstrate that the newly developed SCAD system can improve ultrasound performance and provide enough resolution in the region of interest (ROI) for non-invasive diagnosis of bone mass changes.