assessment of bone mineral density with dual energy x-ray absorptiometry in pre- and post-menopausal women

background: osteoporosis is a chronic disease that contributes substantially to decrease physical activity and decline in the quality of life. osteoporosis can be diagnosed easily with the use of dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (dxa) equipment. the aim of this study was to investigate the magnitude of bone loss on proximal femur and lumbar spine ls in pre- and post-menopausal women from isfahan osteoporosis diagnosis center (iodc) since 2005. materials and methods: bone mineral density (bmd) measurements using dxa have been performed at iodc. 185 pre-menopausal and 174 early post-menopausal women were selected randomly. a norland xr46 system was used for the investigations. the student t-test was done to find the difference between the t-scores of the femoral neck (fn) and lumbar spine (ls) in pre- and post-menopausal women. results: mean bmds for the fn and ls in pre-menopausal women were 0.859 ± 0.136 and 1.012 ± 0.161 and in post-menopausal women were 0.816 ± 0.119 and 0.919 ± 0.140, respectively. long-term bmd cvs of 1.0% and 1.2% for the ls and fn were found, respectively. the differences between the fn and ls for pre- and post-menopausal women were t = - 9.02, p < 0.05 and t = -3.50, p < 0.05, respectively. conclusion: in spite of, the reported lower bmd t-scores for the ls compared with the fn for women, we found that the fn had significantly lower t-score than ls for both pre- and post-menopausal women.