Ability of radiofrequency echographic multispectrometry to identify osteoporosis status in elderly women with type 2 diabetes

BACKGROUND: Patients with type 2 diabetes (T2DM) have an increased or normal BMD; however fragility fractures represent one of the most important complications of T2DM. AIMS: This study aimed to evaluate whether the use of the Radiofrequency Echographic multi spectrometry (REMS) technique may improve the identification of osteoporosis in T2DM patients. METHODS: In a cohort of 90 consecutive postmenopausal elderly (70.5 ± 7.6 years) women with T2DM and in 90 healthy controls we measured BMD at the lumbar spine (LS-BMD), at femoral neck (FN-BMD) and total hip (TH-BMD) using a dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry device; moreover, REMS scans were also carried out at the same axial sites. RESULTS: DXA measurements were all higher in T2DM than in non-T2DM women; instead, all REMS measurements were lower in T2DM than in non T2DM women. Moreover, the percentage of T2DM women classified as "osteoporotic", on the basis of BMD by REMS was markedly higher with respect to those classified by DXA (47.0% vs 28.0%, respectively). On the contrary, the percentage of T2DM women classified as osteopenic or normal by DXA was higher with respect to that by REMS (48.8% and 23.2% vs 38.6% and 14.5%, respectively). T2DM women with fragility fractures presented lower values of both BMD-LS by DXA and BMD-LS by REMS with respect to those without fractures; however, the difference was significant only for BMD-LS by REMS (p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Our data suggest that REMS technology may represent a useful approach to enhance the diagnosis of osteoporosis in patients with T2DM.