Using risk factors and quantitative ultrasound to identify postmenopausal caucasian women at risk of osteoporosis

There is a need to prescreen large numbers of individuals for osteoporosis due to current demands on clinical resources. Some previous attempts to predict individuals at risk have used simple indices based on patient information, or Quantitative Ultrasound (QUS) and have shown good sensitivity but also demonstrated low specificity, which means that many individuals with good bone mineral density were also selected. The aim of this study was to determine if a tool based on a combination of risk factors and QUS measurements could also be made to provide improved specificity. A risk factors measurement questionnaire was created and completed for a sample of Caucasian postmenopausal women (n=235) who had undergone Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry scanning. QUS measurements were also taken at various skeletal sites. Assessment tools were generated using stepwise regression to predict osteoporosis, evaluated by receiver operating characteristic curves, and assessed using area under the curve values. Specificity values were determined at a sensitivity of 0.90 to establish the comparative utility of each assessment tool. Using only a risk factors model the specificities were 0.28 at the lumbar spine, 0.45 for the femoral neck and 0.68 for the total hip. In a risk factors+QUS data model the specificities measured were 0.44 for the lumbar spine, 0.78 for the femoral neck, and 0.84 for the total hip. These novel assessment tools can identify those with low bone mineral density at a number of skeletal sites and help towards avoiding many unnecessary investigations in the future.