In Vivo Analysis of Bone Calcium by Local Neutron Activation of the Hand. Results from Osteoporotic and Hemodialysed Patients

摘要

Neutron activation analysis can be used to measure the total bone mass or simply the calcium mass or concentration of a bone segment, for example the hand bones or vertebrae. For a number of reasons, dosimetric, technological, but especially physiopathological, we decided to use a local activation technique. In generalized demineralizing diseases, particularly osteoporosis, the calcium content variations of one segment are comparable to those of another, and more generally to the mineral content variations of the whole skeleton. It is true that ideally we should measure the mineral content of the lumbar vertebrae where the metabolic activity is especially high, and where damage may occur sooner or in any case is detected earlier in osteoporosis. However neutron irradiation of the vertebrae meets with certain technical problems and may also present difficulties in the interpretation of results. Furthermore in other bone diseases, hyperparathyroidism for instance and especially renal osteodystrophy, bone mineral loss is particularly premature and pronounced in the hand and we therefore decided for the moment to use the hand for the neutron activation analysis of bone calcium. The technique enabled us to measure the calcium concentration of the hand bones in hemodialysed subjects and in patients with primitive osteoporosis. (Atomindex citation 11:498908)