Development of bone mineral density and bone mineral content measurements system using a dual energy x-ray

This paper presented a design of a bone mineral density (BMD) and bone mineral content (BMC) measurements system. The main components consist of an outer structure with lead sheet for x-ray protection, x-ray source controlled by microcontroller, CCD-type x-ray detector, detector controller, and computer program for devices control. The acquired x-ray image is sent to PC for image processing. The bone mineral density and bone mineral content measurement is based on dual energy x-ray absorptiometry. The concept of dual energy x-ray is adopted to estimate the BMD on the finger bone. The preliminary results are fairly promising.