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Aspects of ultrasonic velocity measurement in trabecular bone
Author(s) -
Strelitzki Roland
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
medical physics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.473
H-Index - 180
eISSN - 2473-4209
pISSN - 0094-2405
DOI - 10.1118/1.598135
Subject(s) - attenuation , ultrasonic sensor , acoustics , imaging phantom , phase velocity , osteoporosis , ultrasound , dispersion (optics) , frequency domain , group velocity , measure (data warehouse) , materials science , computer science , optics , physics , mathematics , medicine , mathematical analysis , endocrinology , database
Osteoporosis is a major health problem in modern society. Different techniques are used to discriminate people at risk of this disease. One of them, ultrasound, has advantages compared to the more established densitometric methods. Two parameters, the velocity and the Broadband Ultrasonic Attenutation (BUA) are most often assessed on the oscalcis. The thesis examines the errors in measurement of velocity and attenuation. To confirm and demonstrate this, measurements of BUA on several commercial devices were carried out using bone phantom materials and these showed significant (up to 33 dB MHz‐1) variations. The errors in velocity measurements include those due to frequency dependence of attenuation and velocity and these factors are evaluated separately. Time and frequency domain methods are used as well as theoretical modeling. It is shown that phase velocity is more resilient and accurate than commonly used methods and provides an opportunity to measure dispersion which may be an additional and useful parameter. The use of low frequency methods, utilizing bar wave propagation is also examined. It is concluded that the way is now clear to develop alternative clinical equipment based largely on velocity measurements, which should give a closer estimate of bone strength than existing ultrasonic techniques.