ABSTRACT
Increased awareness of the problem of osteoporotic fractures together with the recent development of effective treatments has increased demands on physicians to manage patients with the disease. This in turn will demand increasing reliance on, and facilities for, the assessment of skeletal status. Bone mineral measurements provide the cornerstone of patient assessment, since osteoporosis is defined in terms of bone mass1. Indeed, bone mineral measurements are used to diagnose the disorder, assess prognosis and monitor the natural history of the treated or untreated disease. The field is complicated by the increasing number of sites that can be measured with an ever increasing number of technologies. No one technology or site subserves optimally all the functions demanded of these assessments. This chapter reviews briefly the use of such measurements in clinical practice.
