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Quantitative ultrasound measurement of bone density based on dynamic time window: suitable for the measurement of speed of sound in radius

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Abstract

Purpose

Our objective was to evaluate the dynamic time window method (DTWM) for the measurement of speed of sound (SOS) at the 1/3 distal radius in 10 human subjects in vivo. DTWM, which is based on our proprietary probe, is a new method for obtaining the accurate time of flight (TOF) of the first arriving signal (FAS).

Method

This study compared DTWM with three conventional methods, i.e., threshold value method, first of maxima, and zero-crossing method, for the measurement of TOF of FAS.

Results

The highest correlation between SOS and bone mineral density (BMD) was found in the 10 human subjects using DTWM (R DTWM = 0.81, p < 0.005) rather than the three conventional methods (R = 0.37–0.41, p > 0.05). The individual short-term coefficient of variation (CV, from 0.07 to 0.27) and Root-Mean-Square (RMS) of the average CV (CVRMS, 0.18) were used to evaluate the reproducibility of our method (DTWM).

Conclusion

Despite the small population, the results suggest that DTWM improves the accuracy of recognition of SOS in vivo, and might be applied to optimize the clinical assessment of long cortical bone osteoporosis and fracture risk profile.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the NSFC (No. 61401436), the National Science and Technology Pillar Program (No. 2013BAH14F01), and the Natural Science Foundation of Anhui Province of China (No. 1308085MF99).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute and Intelligent of Machines, Chinese Academy of Science, Hefei, 230026, Anhui, People’s Republic of China

    Yang Xu, Yubing Xu, Yanyan Chen, Zenghui Ding, Zuchang Ma & Yining Sun

  2. Department of Automation, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, People’s Republic of China

    Yang Xu

Authors
  1. Yang Xu
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  2. Yubing Xu
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  3. Yanyan Chen
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  4. Zenghui Ding
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  5. Zuchang Ma
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yanyan Chen.

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There are no financial or other relations that could lead to a conflict of interest.

Ethical statements

The study was approved by the local Institutional Review Board. All study participants gave written informed consent after the study was explained to them.

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Xu, Y., Xu, Y., Chen, Y. et al. Quantitative ultrasound measurement of bone density based on dynamic time window: suitable for the measurement of speed of sound in radius. J Med Ultrasonics 43, 347–354 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10396-016-0710-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10396-016-0710-4

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