CTXA hip--an extension of classical DXA measurements using quantitative CT

Bone mineral density (BMD) estimates for the proximal femur using Dual Energy X-ray Absorptiometry (DXA) are currently considered the standard for making a diagnosis of osteoporosis in an individual patient using BMD alone. We have compared BMD results from a commercial Quantitative CT (QCT) BMD analysis system, "CTXA Hip", which provides clinical data for the proximal femur, to results from DXA. We have also used CTXA Hip to determine cortical and trabecular contributions to total BMD. Sixty-nine patients were scanned using 3D QCT and DXA. CTXA Hip BMD measurements for Total Hip and Femoral Neck were compared to DXA results. Twenty-two women were scanned at 0, 1, 2 years and CTXA Hip and DXA results analyzed for long-term reproducibility. Long-term reproducibility calculated as root-mean-square averages of SDs in vivo was 0.012 g/cm2 (CV = 1.8%) for CTXA Total Hip and 0.011 g/cm2 (CV = 2.0%) for CTXA Femoral Neck compared to 0.014 g/cm2 (CV = 2.0%) and 0.016 g/cm2 (CV = 2.7%), respectively, for DXA. The correlation of Total Hip BMD CTXA vs. DXA was R = 0.97 and for Femoral Neck was R = 0.95 (SEE 0.044 g/cm2 in both cases). Cortical bone comprised 62±5% (mean ± SD) of total hipbone mass in osteoporotic women. CTXA Hip provides substantially the same clinical information as conventional DXA and in addition provides estimates of BMD in separate cortical and trabecular bone compartments, which may be useful in evaluation of bone strength.