An aging America
has a growing need
for densitometers.
By Joan Trombetti
This article is from in the July 2007 issue of DOTmed Business News. A list of registered users that provide sales & service can be found at the end.
Meet the Inventor of the Machine. "There are now over 50,000 bone densitometers in the world. I doubt if more than 50 radiologists in the world know who invented the instrument." These are the words of the late John R. Cameron from 2002, professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and the inventor of the bone densitometer.
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In 1959, Cameron discovered that there was no way to detect early osteoporosis, even though many older women were breaking their hips and, in some cases, dying. He invented the densitometer in 1960, but it was not often utilized because there was no known treatment for the problem. Yet, on its 25th anniversary, Investigative Radiology listed one of Cameron's early bone densitometry publications (Invest. Radio. 3:141; 1968) as its single most cited article.
Today, the densitometer is an important diagnostic tool that is used to measure the amount of matter in a given bone, or bone mineral density (BMD). Cameron died in 2005, believing that he received little recognition for his invention. He did, however, believe that his contribution led to many useful clinical applications in accurately measuring bone densitometry. Lunar Radiation (now GE-Lunar) arose directly from early work done in Cameron's laboratory.
A fully refurbished
Hologic Dephi A
2003 densitometer
from Metropolis
International of
New York City.
The Need For Bone Densitometers Grows
As life expectancy increases, so does the occasion of certain chronic disabilities, including osteoporosis, among the elderly. Osteoporosis is also a risk factor in postmenopausal women because of estrogen deficiency and other factors. Osteoporosis and osteopenia (BMD that is lower than normal peak BMD but not low enough to be classified as osteoporosis) affect as many as 44 million people age 50 and older in the United States alone.
Bone mass usually peaks between the third and fourth decades of life. After this time, there is a natural decline that is more prominent in elderly and postmenopausal women. In these groups, it has been observed that the higher the peak bone mass achieved, the less likely bone fractures will occur. Factors such as lifestyle and genetic makeup also affect bone density.
