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Órgano Oficial de difusión científica de la Asociación Mexicana de Cirujanos de Columna A. C. y de la Sociedad Iberolatinoamericana de Columna. SILACO.

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2026, Number 4

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Cir Columna 2026; 4 (4)

Comparation of the Hounsfield units versus bone densitometry in the diagnosis of osteoporosis

Bazán PL, Cinalli M, Sirna P

Language: Spanish
References: 23
Page: 294-297
PDF size: 590.11 Kb.


ABSTRACT

Introduction: osteoporosis is a skeletal disease characterized by alterations in microarchitecture that results in fragility and predisposition to fractures. The diagnostic gold standard is bone densitometry. Many alternatives have been analyzed to assess "bone health", one of them is the measurement of Hounsfield units (HU) in tomography. Objective: to compare the use of HU with DEXA, calculate sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value of tomography for osteoporosis diagnosis and evaluate whether these results vary according to the age of patients. Material and methods: a cross-sectional study with patients over 55 years of age, using densitometry and contemporary tomography. Region of Interest (ROI) in R1 axial cut was measured. Results: 54 patients were admitted, with an average age of 70.46 years, with IC95%; 39 had a diagnosis of osteoporosis due to HU and 27 by bone densitometry; in 20 cases no diagnostic correlation was found. HU: 85% sensitivity, 41% specificity, 59% positive predictive value and 73% negative predictive value. The agreement between the two studies was 62.96. The group of over 65 years, sensitivity increased to 90%, specificity was 21%. Conclusions: HU measurement exhibits high sensitivity and low specificity, making it a valuable screening method in existing computed tomography (CT) scans; however, it is not a substitute for bone densitometry. Further large-scale studies are required.


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