Hologic Right Forearm Scan with a Watch Artifact

Case Description:

The images show a supine Hologic right forearm scan without and with a watch artifact. Notice the effect on the reported BMD at the 1/3 radius. The presence of the artifact affects BMD because of its unpredictable effect on the soft tissue baseline.  In the forearm, there are very few soft-tissue pixels available to calculate an average baseline.  Even a few pixels of artifact incorrectly identified as soft tissue can have a large effect on BMD.    On Hologic systems, artifacts outside of the global ROI will generally not exhibit this effect.

All external artifacts should be removed prior to scanning, even if they are not overlying the region of interest being reported.

Credit:

Sarah L Morgan, MD, RD, CCD The University of Alabama at Birmingham, Osteoporosis Prevention and Treatment Clinic

References:

Thank you to Leandria Burroughs CBDT, RT for the images.