Pulsed vibro-acoustic method for assessment of osteoporosis & osteopenia: A feasibility study on human subjects

In this paper we propose a new non-invasive ultrasound method, pulsed vibro-acoustic, for evaluating osteoporotic and osteopenic bone in humans. Vibro-acoustic method uses acoustic radiation force (ARF) to stimulate bone and the resulting acoustic signal can be used to characterize bone. The resulting acoustic signal is collected by a hydrophone at the skin surface. Wave velocity and numbers of intrinsic modes are used for analysis. Wave velocity is estimated using the received signal and maximum power mode of the decomposed signal is estimated using variational mode composition from different push points of ARF based on the cross-correlation method. A total of 27 adult volunteers, including healthy and those diagnosed with osteopenia and osteoporosis, were tested. Results of pulsed vibro-acoustic test on tibia of volunteers showed that healthy group could be differentiated from osteoporosis or osteopenia (p < 2 × 10^-5). The results of our study support the feasibility of pulsed vibro-acoustic method for measuring mechanical properties of bone and the potential clinical utility of the proposed method for assessment of bone health.