Improvements in the management of rheumatic patients from vertebral imagee obtained through dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry.

The diagnosis of asymptomatic vertebral fracture is clinically useful and the identification of new fractures may influences the choice of appropriate therapeutic measures. In order to identify moderate and asymptomatic vertebral deformities in an objective and reproducible manner, vertebral morphometry is performed. This method measures the vertebral body's anterior, middle and posterior heights at the dorsal and lumbar level. Currently this technique is performed on lateral images of the spine obtained through the traditional X-ray method (radiological morphometry or morphometric X-ray radiography, MRX) and, more recently from images obtained through dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) machines (visual assessment of X-ray absorptiometry scans or morphometric X-ray absorptiometry, MXA), commonly used to measure bone mineral density.