Osteoporosis causes over 120,000 bone fractures per year in Sweden, and is normally diagnosed using a bone density measurement based on a 2D X-ray examination.
However, the existing method misses about half of all patients who are at risk of suffering a fracture, according to Hanna Isaksson, professor of biomedical engineering at Lund University – who was involved in developing the new method.
“With the help of the new method, every year we could detect about a thousand more people with a high risk of hip fracture. And there are many indications that the method can also be used to detect osteoporosis before the first fracture occurs,” says Hanna Isaksson in a press release from Lund University.
“Until now, there has been a lack of reliable methods to detect the disease at an early stage, that is, before the first fracture occurs”.
The newly developed method uses two-dimensional X-ray images to produce a three-dimensional model of the bone, which makes it possible to simulate different scenarios. The simulations in turn make it easier to assess the risk of fractures.
The researchers have recently had a study published showing that the method is better at predicting the risk of hip fractures compared to the existing method.
“If these people who actually had a hip fracture had been examined with the new measurement method, those with low bone strength could have been identified and several of the broken bones could have been avoided,” says Hanna Isaksson in the press release.