Preface

View Large Image Download to PowerPoint

Giuseppe Guglielmi, MD Guest Editor

It is a great pleasure to introduce this interesting issue of Radiologic Clinic of North America on imaging of osteoporosis. The diagnosis of osteoporosis and the determination of fracture risk have always been challenging for radiologists, epidemiologists, and clinicians as well as other researchers and health care professionals working in the field. The need for this issue indicates the great interest among radiologists, and those in several other medical disciplines, in the diagnosis and management of this common condition and its possible complications.

Osteoporosis is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality among the elderly. With the prediction that the number of people who are 60 years old or more will increase from approximately 300 million to greater than 700 million in the next 25 years, it can be appreciated that osteoporosis will rapidly reach epidemic proportions with a high socioeconomic impact. Orthopedic procedures in elderly patients are costly, and with the increasing age of the population, these costs will continue to escalate. Thus, although it is primarily radiologists involved in osteoporosis imaging in everyday clinical practice, this book is directed toward endocrinologists, internists, gynecologists, orthopedic surgeons, general practitioners, and every physician who cares for osteoporotic patients. It should be of value to all who work in clinical or scientific studies.

Today's highly sophisticated diagnostic techniques involve conventional radiography as well as quantitative methods: dual energy x-ray absorptiometry, quantitative CT and peripheral quantative CT, vertebral morphometry, and quantitative ultrasound. This issue concludes with the promising techniques of MR imaging and different high-resolution methods, considering also pediatric patients and the interventional modalities available for the treatment of severe osteoporosis conditions.

I would like to thank the authors for their expert contributions to attempt to cover all the important issues encountered in a small and highly specialized field, such osteoporosis imaging.

Finally, my special gratitude goes to Mr Barton Dudlick from Elsevier for inviting me to participate in this project.