Radiofrequency Echographic Multi-Spectrometry (REMS) technology and DXA for BMD assessment in kidney transplant recipients

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Radiofrequency Echographic Multi-Spectrometry (REMS) is a novel ultrasound-based technique that has shown good reliability in the assessment of BMD in women affected by post-menopausal osteoporosis. Data on special populations with secondary osteoporosis are needed. The aim of this study was to compare the performance of the REMS BMD assessment with DXA in a cohort of kidney transplant recipients (KTR). Consecutive patients referring to our KTR clinic were enrolled. All subjects fulfilled the following inclusion criteria: Caucasian population, both genders, age between 40 and 80 years, BMI < 40kg/m2. The enrolled patients underwent a lumbar spine (LS) and femoral neck (FN) examination with DXA and REMS. Differences in DXA vs REMS T-scores were analyzed through Student's t test for independent samples, correlations were tested though Pearson's correlation. Differences in prevalence were tested trough Chi-squared test. Written informed consent was obtained from all participants (protocol 1483CESC). 40 patients were enrolled (table 1). At the LS, BMD was significantly lower when assessed through REMS. The correlation between the T-scores obtained with DXA and REMS are depicted in figure 1. When adopting the worst site, the prevalence of subjects with T-score <-2.5 was 40.5% with DXA and 37.8% with REMS (p=NS) and of subjects with T-score <-1 was 89% with DXA and 97.5% with REMS (p=0.003). These results showed a good reliability of the REMS technology with respect to DXA in the classification of KTR patients as having low bone mass and/or osteoporosis. Furthermore, REMS might be more sensitive than DXA in the detection of early bone impairment and in the classification of KTR patients with low bone mass. Uploaded File(s)