Performance appraisals of digital spectroscopy systems for the measurement of bone lead

The performances of two new digital spectroscopy systems are compared to a conventional analogue amplifier ADC system for the 109 Cd based K X-ray fluorescence in vivo measurement of bone lead. Canberra’s DSA-2000 and ORTEC’s DSPEC PLUS were found to show 27.3 and 10.8% improvements in measurement precision respectively, when compared to an optimized conventional system. The resulting improvements in minimum detection limit, compared with the conventional limit of 6‐10 mg Pb/g bone mineral, were reductions of 1.5‐2.5 mg Pb/g bone mineral for the DSA-2000, and 0.5‐1.0 mg Pb/g bone mineral for the DSPEC PLUS . 7 2000 Elsevier