Abstract:

BACKGROUND: At present, sheep has gradually become a promising model in osteoporosis research.
OBJECTIVE: To measure the sheep femoral fracture fragments and all bone mineral density by the dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA), and to discusses the precision and accuracy of the DXA in the process of measurements.
METHODS: The Own Lunar lumbar model was scanned with DXA 10 times every day in order to determine the precision of the machine and then continuous scanned for 25 days. Shewhart control chart was established according to the measured data. Five femoral bones were selected from three sheep and scanned repeatedly seven times. The DXA animal analysis software was used to analyze the bone density of the sheep femoral fracture fragments and all bone mineral density to calculate its accuracy. Besides, eight femoral bones from four sheep were selected, fixed at the femoral fracture site by two kinds of steel plates for analysis of bone mineral density and observation of bone mineral content changes.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: The precision of the machine was -1.0% and the accuracy of the sheep femoral fracture fragments and all bone density was 0.005-0.537 g/cm². The short-term precisions of the femoral and fracture fragments bone mineral density were separately 0.8% and 1.5%, and the short-term precisions of the femoral and fracture fragments bone mineral content were 0.9% and 7.5%. There was no significant meaning in the bone density of sheep femoral fixed by different plates and bone mineral content difference. The results confirm that the DXA can accurately measure the bone density of the femur in vitro, but there are some errors in analyzing the bone mineral density of fracture fragments.