title: Effect of Clothing on Measurement of Bone Mineral Density.
abstract: It is unknown whether allowing patients to have BMD (bone mineral density) studies acquired while wearing radiolucent clothing adlib contributes appreciably to the measurement error seen. To examine this question, a spine phantom was scanned 30 times without any clothing, while draped with a gown, and while draped with heavy winter clothing. The effect on mean BMD and on SD (standard deviation) was assessed. The effect of clothing on mean or SD of the area was not significant. The effect of clothing on mean and SD for BMD was small but significant and was around 1.6% for the mean. However, the effect on BMD precision was much more clinically important. Without clothing the spine phantom had an least significant change of 0.0077 gm/cm(2), while when introducing variability of clothing the least significant change rose as high as 0.0305 gm/cm(2). We conclude that, adding clothing to the spine phantom had a small but statistically significant effect on the mean BMD and on variance of the measurement. It is unlikely that the effect on mean BMD has any clinical significance, but the effect on the reproducibility (precision) of the result is likely clinically significant.
authors.affiliation: Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Department of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA, USA.
authors.forename: Elizabeth A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: McNamara
authors.affiliation: Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Department of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA, USA.
authors.forename: Anna Z
authors.initials: AZ
authors.lastname: Feldman
authors.affiliation: Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Department of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA, USA.
authors.forename: Alan O
authors.initials: AO
authors.lastname: Malabanan
authors.affiliation: Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Department of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA, USA.
authors.forename: Ejigayehu G
authors.initials: EG
authors.lastname: Abate
authors.affiliation: Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Department of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA, USA.
authors.forename: LaTarsha G
authors.initials: LG
authors.lastname: Whittaker
authors.affiliation: Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Department of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA, USA.
authors.forename: Amanda
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Yano-Litwin
authors.affiliation: Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Department of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA, USA.
authors.forename: Jolene
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Dorazio
authors.affiliation: Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Department of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA, USA. Electronic address: hrosen@bidmc.harvard.edu.
authors.forename: Harold N
authors.initials: HN
authors.lastname: Rosen
mesh_terms: D015502:Absorptiometry, Photon / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards; D015519:Bone Density; D003020:Clothing; D003951:Diagnostic Errors / Q000517:prevention & control*; D006801:Humans; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D012015:Reference Standards; D015203:Reproducibility of Results
keywords: Accuracy; bone mineral density; clothing; precision; radiolucent