[Measurement of bone mineral content by quantitative digital radiography. First results in the lumbar vertebrae].

The precision of quantitative digital radiography (QDR) bone densitometer has been evaluated from measurements which were made on an anthropomorphic spine phantom of known mineral content and on volunteers. In vitro and in vivo, the coefficient of variation of the measured values was less than 0.4 p. 100 and the accuracy was very close to 100 p. 100. Measurements were also made on 30 patients and gave results that were well correlated with those obtained with two different dual photon absorptiometry (DPA) apparatus (Novo Lab 22a and Oris).