Ultrasound bone velocity on proximal phalanges in premenopausal, perimenopausal, and postmenopausal healthy women

Abstract

Rationale and objectives: The authors studied premenopausal, perimenopausal, and postmenopausal women to determine if ultrasound bone velocity (UBV) on proximal phalanges of women reflect bone changes related to gonadal status and age.

Methods: A total of 166 healthy women-64 postmenopausal women (mean age 58.7 +/- 9.4 years), 41 perimenopausal women (mean age 49.5 +/- 2.9 years), and 61 premenopausal women (mean age 36.8 +/- 7.1 years)-were studied. All the women underwent UBV study of the 2nd to 5th proximal phalanges on the nondominant hand and the mean value of all ultrasound measurements was calculated.

Results: The postmenopausal women had a UBV that differed significantly, one-way analysis of variance, from that of the perimenopausal women and premenopausal women (both P < 0.001). The UBV measurements of the perimenopausal women differed significantly from those of the premenopausal women (P < 0.01). Simple linear regression analysis of the relation between UBV and age showed that this was significant and negative in the overall group of women (r = -0.69; P < 0.0001), significant in the perimenopausal (r = -0.66; P < 0.001) and postmenopausal women (r = -0.69; P < 0.001) and nonsignificant in the premenopausal women (r = 0.08; P not significant). In the postmenopausal women, the correlation between UBV and years since menopause was larger (r = -0.71; P < 0.0001) than the correlation between UBV and chronological age.

Conclusions: Ultrasound bone velocity of the phalanx, as a method for measuring changes in bone with age, has a precision that makes it possible to detect changes in bone mass in perimenopausal women and may perform similarly to other bone mass measurements.