A handheld device for diagnosing the early signs of osteoporosis could be available for clinical use within five years.
The technology is currently being refined and tested at the University of Southampton with support from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). The original concept was invented at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Unlike existing methods of assessing bone fragility, which measure bone density using X-rays, the device is designed to measure the ability of bone tissue to prevent small cracks growing into full-blown fractures.
It does this by pressing a microscopic needle a tiny distance into the top layer of bone. Measured electronically, the amount of penetration indicates how fragile the bone tissue is and therefore the risk of experiencing an osteoporotic fracture later in life.
Osteoporosis is often referred to as fragile bone disease. However, for many sufferers, the first indication that they have the condition is when they actually sustain a fracture.
Drugs can slow or arrest the development of the disease, but the condition may already be quite advanced by the time the first break has happened. Doctors can estimate an individual's risk of fracturing by using bone-density measurements and other factors such as age, gender, smoking and any history of fracturing. But the new microindentation technology affordably delivers a fundamentally different measurement that has huge potential to refine such an evaluation.
by Shane Turner via NursingFacultyJobs.com
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