Posts Tagged ‘ISCD’
VFA Adds Acuracy to DXA Testing
Vertebral Fracture Assessment (VFA) identifies many persons with Clinical Osteoporosis who are missed by DXA testing alone. How many? I reviewed my first 941 patients to have VFA with their DXA (Feb 2010 – Sept 2012). I was amazed.
25% of the total had at least one Genant grade 2 or 3 Vertebral Deformity on VFA but were not identified as Osteoporosis by DXA. This is Clinical Osteoporosis missed by DXA alone in 25% of my total patients.
DXA – The Old Standard
DXA has been the standard screening test for Osteoporosis in the USA for two decades. DXA is easy to obtain and the computer print-out makes it look very simple to read. Too simple if all you do is look at the computer print-out. DXA is not the whole story. And that is not the only difficulty.
DXA measures Bone Mineral Density (BMD). Calcium is the usual mineral in bone, and the one we intend to measure. The computer reads out calcium g/cm2 (a bit hard to understand) and also gives a “t-score” comparing the test result to a healthy 30 year old woman. That makes it simple – “normal”, “osteopenia”, or “osteoporosis”. Again, much too simple if what you really want to know is Fracture Risk.
Better Patient Education
How can we make Bone Health patient education more effective? An entire office visit only about bone health / osteoporosis prevention and treatment, is an effective start. This I have done since 2007. Now national leaders are looking for the next step. The answer surprised me.
In 2012, presenters at National Osteoporosis Foundation (NOF), International Society for Clinical Densitometry (ISCD), and American Society for Bone and Mineral Research (ASBMR) have said the same thing: Spend less time on each visit, but increase the number of visits. Studies are showing that this works.