Relationships of ultrasonic backscatter with ultrasonic attenuation, sound speed and bone mineral density in human calcaneus.

Ultrasonic attenuation and sound speed have been investigated in trabecular bone by numerous authors. Ultrasonic backscatter has received much less attention. To investigate relationships among these three ultrasonic parameters and bone mineral density (BMD), 30 defatted human calcanei were investigated in vitro. Normalized broadband ultrasonic attenuation (nBUA), sound speed (SOS), and logarithm of ultrasonic backscatter coefficient (LBC) were measured. Bone mineral density was assessed using single-beam dual energy x-ray absorptiometry (DEXA). The correlation coefficients of least squares linear regressions of the three individual ultrasound (US) parameters with BMD were 0.84 (nBUA), 0.84 (SOS) and 0.79 (LBC). The 95% confidence intervals for the correlation coefficients were 0. 69-0.92 (nBUA), 0.68-0.92 (SOS) and 0.60-0.90 (LBC). The correlations among pairs of US variables ranged from 0.63-0.79. Variations in nBUA accounted for r(2) = 62% of the variations in LBC. Variations in SOS accounted for r(2) = 40% of the variations in LBC. These results suggest that ultrasonic backscattering properties may contain substantial information not already contained in nBUA and SOS. A multiple regression model including all three US variables was somewhat more predictive of BMD than a model including only nBUA and SOS.

[1]  Harry K. Genant,et al.  Broadband ultrasound attenuation predicts fractures strongly and independently of densitometry in older women. A prospective study. Study of Osteoporotic Fractures Research Group. , 1997, Archives of internal medicine.

[2]  B. Garra,et al.  Assessment of bone density using ultrasonic backscatter. , 1998, Ultrasound in medicine & biology.

[3]  J. G. Miller,et al.  Differentiation between acutely ischemic myocardium and zones of completed infarction in dogs on the basis of frequency-dependent backscatter. , 1989, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[4]  P. Laugier,et al.  Velocity dispersion of acoustic waves in cancellous bone , 1998, IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control.

[5]  C F Njeh,et al.  The effect of cortical endplates on ultrasound velocity through the calcaneus: an in vitro study. , 1997, The British journal of radiology.

[6]  G Berger,et al.  In vitro assessment of the relationship between acoustic properties and bone mass density of the calcaneus by comparison of ultrasound parametric imaging and quantitative computed tomography. , 1997, Bone.

[7]  J. Faran.  Sound Scattering by Solid Cylinders and Spheres , 1951 .

[8]  A. John Mallinckrodt,et al.  Data Reduction and Error Analysis for the Physical Sciences , 1993 .

[9]  M. Ragozzino.  Analysis of the error in measurement of ultrasound speed in tissue due to waveform deformation by frequency-dependent attenuation. , 1981, Ultrasonics.

[10]  J. Cauley,et al.  Broadband ultrasound attenuation predicts fractures strongly and independently of densitometry in older women. A prospective study. Study of Osteoporotic Fractures Research Group. , 1997, Archives of Internal Medicine.

[11]  M. O’Donnell,et al.  Quantitative broadband ultrasonic backscatter: An approach to nondestructive evaluation in acoustically inhomogeneous materials , 1981 .

[12]  B Bianco,et al.  Computational methods for ultrasonic bone assessment. , 1999, Ultrasound in medicine & biology.

[13]  K. Wear.  Frequency dependence of ultrasonic backscatter from human trabecular bone: theory and experiment. , 1999, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[14]  P. R. Bevington,et al.  Data Reduction and Error Analysis for the Physical Sciences , 1969 .

[15]  E. Madsen,et al.  Method of data reduction for accurate determination of acoustic backscatter coefficients. , 1984, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[16]  S. Cummings,et al.  Bone density at various sites for prediction of hip fractures , 1993, The Lancet.

[17]  Allan D. Pierce,et al.  Acoustics , 1989 .

[18]  J. Taylor,et al.  Quantitative Heel Ultrasound in 3180 Women Between 45 and 75 Years of Age: Compliance, Normal Ranges and Relationship to Fracture History , 1998, Osteoporosis International.

[19]  G. Breart,et al.  Ultrasonographic heel measurements to predict hip fracture in elderly women: the EPIDOS prospective study , 1996, The Lancet.

[20]  Variation of human cancellous bone ultrasonic properties with density and micro-structure , 1999, 1999 IEEE Ultrasonics Symposium. Proceedings. International Symposium (Cat. No.99CH37027).

[21]  Allan D. Pierce,et al.  Acoustics: An Introduction to Its Physical Principles and Applications , 1981 .

[22]  F Duboeuf,et al.  Ultrasound discriminates patients with hip fracture equally well as dual energy X‐ray absorptiometry and independently of bone mineral density , 1995, Journal of bone and mineral research : the official journal of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research.

[23]  J.J. Kaufman,et al.  Diffraction correction methods for insertion ultrasound attenuation estimation , 1993, IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering.

[24]  K. Wear,et al.  The effects of frequency-dependent attenuation and dispersion on sound speed measurements: applications in human trabecular bone , 2000, IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control.

[25]  J. A. Evans,et al.  Dependence of the velocity and attenuation of ultrasound in bone on the mineral content. , 1991, Physics in medicine and biology.

[26]  J. Currey,et al.  Prediction of mechanical properties of the human calcaneus by broadband ultrasonic attenuation. , 1996, Bone.

[27]  T J Hall,et al.  Measurements of ultrasonic backscatter coefficients in human liver and kidney in vivo. , 1995, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[28]  H. Trębacz,et al.  Ultrasound Velocity and Attenuation in Cancellous Bone Samples from Lumbar Vertebra and Calcaneus , 1999, Osteoporosis International.

[29]  C F Njeh,et al.  Orthogonal relationships between ultrasonic velocity and material properties of bovine cancellous bone. , 1996, Medical engineering & physics.

[30]  R. Kuc,et al.  Estimating the Acoustic Attenuation Coefficient Slope for Liver from Reflected Ultrasound Signals , 1979, IEEE Transactions on Sonics and Ultrasonics.

[31]  Pascal Laugier,et al.  Measurement of integrated backscatter coefficient of trabecular bone , 1996, 1996 IEEE Ultrasonics Symposium. Proceedings.

[32]  J. Zagzebski,et al.  Comparison of speed of sound and ultrasound attenuation in the os calcis to bone density of the radius, femur and lumbar spine. , 1989, Clinical physics and physiological measurement : an official journal of the Hospital Physicists' Association, Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Medizinische Physik and the European Federation of Organisations for Medical Physics.

[33]  P Rüegsegger,et al.  Do quantitative ultrasound measurements reflect structure independently of density in human vertebral cancellous bone? , 1998, Bone.

[34]  C C Glüer,et al.  Osteoporosis: association of recent fractures with quantitative US findings. , 1996, Radiology.

[35]  K. Wear,et al.  Anisotropy of ultrasonic backscatter and attenuation from human calcaneus: implications for relative roles of absorption and scattering in determining attenuation. , 2000, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[36]  C. Langton,et al.  The measurement of broadband ultrasonic attenuation in cancellous bone. , 1984, Engineering in medicine.