Bone mineral densitometry in clinical practice

doi:10.1136/bmj.311.7015.1300b

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Andrew Simmons,
Sally Barrington,
Michael J O'Doherty,
Anthony J Coakley

Lecturer Senior registrar Consultant Director East Kent Osteoporosis Screening and Research Unit, Kent and Canterbury Hospital, Canterbury, Kent CT1 3NG

Differences in reference values are important

EDITOR,--J E Compston and colleagues emphasise the merits of assessing bone density in patients relative to that in young adults (the T score) rather than relative to that in controls matched for age (the Z score), on the basis of the recommendations of an expert panel of the World Health Organisation.1 Consensus on this issue, however, is still lacking,2 and the T score has not been widely used clinically in Britain, where comparisons with controls matched for age still dominate.

Among the limitations of bone densitometry …