Monte Carlo Modeling of Dual and Triple Photon Energy Absorptiometry Technique

Introduction: Osteoporosis is a bone disease in which there is a reduction in the amount of bone mineral content leading to an increase in the risk of bone fractures. The affected individuals not only have to go through lots of pain and suffering but this disease also results in high economic costs to the society due to a large number of fractures.  A timely and accurate diagnosis of this disease makes it possible to start a treatment and thus preventing bone fractures as a result of osteoporosis. Radiographic methods are particularly well suited for in vivo determination of bone mineral density (BMD) due to the relatively high x-ray absorption properties of bone mineral compared to other tissues. Materials and Methods: Monte Carlo simulation has been conducted to explore the possibilities of triple photon energy absorptiometry (TPA) in the measurement of bone mineral content. The purpose of this technique is to correctly measure the bone mineral density in the presence of fatty and soft tissues. The same simulations have been done for a dual photon energy absorptiometry (DPA) system and an extended DPA system. Results: Using DPA with three components improves the accuracy of the obtained result while the simulation results show that TPA system is not accurate enough to be considered as an adequate method for the measurement of bone mineral density. Discussion: The reason for the improvement in the accuracy is the consideration of fatty tissue in TPA method while having attenuation coefficient as a function of energy makes TPA an inadequate method. Conclusion: Using TPA method is not a perfect solution to overcome the problem of non uniformity in the distribution of fatty tissue.