Ultrasonic imaging of bone

Summary form only given. The work at Southampton General Hospital has concentrated on developing the broadband ultrasonic attenuation technique for both the absolute assessment and longitudinal monitoring of the effects of osteoporosis. Initial work involving a single site quantitative measurement has indicated the need to improve reproducibility. To address this problem an imaging system has been developed to accurately locate recognisable anatomical sites and hence base consecutive measurements on the same region of bone. To investigate the resolution that might be attainable with this technique images of the os calcis have been acquired at frequencies of 200, 400 and 600 kHz using both focussed and non-focussed probes. In vitro phantom measurements have also been carried out to assess the performance of these probes and to compare them with the vivo assessment