Quantitative CT assessment of the lumbar spine and radius in patients with osteoporosis.

We undertook this study to quantify the relationship between bone mineral assessments of the lumbar spine using quantitative CT (QCT) and of the radius using peripheral QCT (pQCT) and to test the sensitivity of both techniques in detecting changes in bone mass that are related to age and osteoporosis.Forty-two healthy premenopausal, 38 healthy postmenopausal, and 97 osteoporotic postmenopausal women were examined with pQCT of the distal radius and with QCT of the lumbar spine (L1-L4). The bone mineral density (BMD), bone mineral content (BMC), and a cross-sectional area of cortical bone were assessed at the distal radius. The BMD of trabecular and total bone and the BMC of total bone were assessed at the midvertebral bodies of the lumbar spine.In the healthy women, correlations of radial BMD with spinal trabecular and total BMD were modest (r = .39 and r = .49, respectively) but were higher for total BMC (r = .79). All correlations in osteoporotic women (r = .19 for trabecular BMD, r = .31 for total BMD, ...