An experimental probe has been developed by the American firm Active Life Science to give doctors an instant indication of bone strength.
Using this new tool only takes a few seconds and is hardly more painful and traumatic than a pin prick.
Indeed, it is enough to prick the probe in the tibia. If it naturally sinks more than 0.04 millimeters, this determines that the bones are fragile and sparse. The risk of fractures is therefore higher.
On the other hand, if the bones are dense and healthy, the probe cannot penetrate them beyond 0.02 millimeters (half the width of a human hair).
Researchers at the University of Southampton (UK) took bits of bone left over from hip replacement surgery and performed lab tests using this new technique to analyze whether it accurately describes the strength bones.
They claim that “if used with existing testing methods, it could indeed help prevent fractures”.
Claire Bowring, director of the National Osteoporosis Society (an English association for the prevention of osteoporosis) declared that “this new study is indeed very interesting. Current bone density analysis techniques do not make perfect measurements of bone strength and do not show the quality of bone.”
“This new technique that looks at measures of bone fragility is needed in the development of our understanding of osteoporosis and bone health, and may help us reduce the number of fractures.”
Osteoporosis is characterized by a decrease in bone mass and abnormalities in the architecture of the bone, which becomes porous. As a result, the bones break easily, especially at the vertebral level, causing very painful compressions. Wrist and femoral neck fractures are also characteristic of this fragility. Nearly 40% of women over the age of 50 are at risk of suffering an osteoporotic fracture.
Scientists are now planning to test this probe in a clinical trial in order to commercialize it.
