Analysis of ISCD-NIST Survey for Bone Health

Published

April 1, 2009

Author(s)

Andrew M. Dienstfrey, Tammy L. Oreskovic, Herbert S. Bennett, Lawrence T. Hudson

Abstract

In 2007, the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the International Society for Clinical Densitometry designed a survey to prioritize seven research and standardization action items intended to improve accuracy and cross-comparability of dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) measurements of bone mineral density. In this paper we analyze the 1074 survey responses to define consensus priorities of the bone health community and to determine possible correlations between prioritization and demographic data including: geographic location, years of experience practicing DXA, and medical specialty. We find that the distribution of ranks from all respondents is such that we can conclude with statistical confidence that there are perceived distinctions between the relative merits of the possible action items. Applying a standard vote counting rule to the data we determine a complete ranking of the action items. We observe that a consistent ranking of each action item across all demographic subgroups is hard to achieve. Defining a grouping of the seven action items into four groups, a reasonably consistent prioritization can be determined. Under this grouping the development of standard reference databases and phantoms receive the highest priority. In addition we report consistent themes that emerge from the free-response portion of the survey.

Citation

Journal of Clinical Densitometry

Volume

12

Pub Type

Journals

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Keywords

bone mineral density (BMD), calibration phantoms, edge detection, International Society for Clinical Densitometry (ISCD), National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), region of interest (ROI), reference database, standards, survey analysis

Citation

Dienstfrey, A. , Oreskovic, T. , Bennett, H. and Hudson, L. (2009), Analysis of ISCD-NIST Survey for Bone Health, Journal of Clinical Densitometry, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=890044 (Accessed April 26, 2024)