A handheld device that can diagnose the early signs of the bone condition osteoporosis could be available for use within five years, researchers hope.
The University of Southampton, with support from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), is testing and refining the technology, which was originally invented at the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA.
Osteoporosis – sometimes described as brittle bones – affects many elderly people.
Professor Philipp Thurner, who is leading the Observational Study Examining Osteoporosis (OStEO), said unlike existing methods of testing bone fragility, which measure bone density using X-rays, the new device measures the ability of bone tissue to prevent small cracks growing into full-blown fractures.
A microscopic needle is pressed a tiny distance into the top layer of bone and the amount of penetration indicates how fragile the bone tissue is.
A normal reading might see the needle sink into the bone by around 20 micrometres (0.02 mm), while a reading of 40 micrometres might indicate a significant risk of fracture.
“The potential improvement in assessing osteoporosis and future fracture risk offered by this new technology could reduce the burden of broken bones for individuals, healthcare systems and the economy,” said Prof Thurner.
Claire Bowring, medical policy manager at the National Osteoporosis Society, welcomed the development.
“This new study is certainly interesting,” she said. “Bone density scanning is the gold-standard diagnostic tools. However it is not a perfect measure of bone strength and does not show the quality of bone. New techniques, which look at further measures of bone fragility, are very important in developing our understanding of osteoporosis and bone health and in helping to reduce the number of fragility fractures.”
The three-year research project, Handheld Microindentation – A Direct Assessment of Bone Fracture Risk (EP/J008192/1), is due to run until 2015.
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