Ultrasonic backscatter techniques are being developed to detect changes in bone caused by osteoporosis. The present study introduces a new technique that measures the exponential decay in the amplitude of the backscatter signal quantified by a parameter called the backscatter amplitude decay constant (BADC). Measurements were performed on 54 specimens of cancellous bone from 14 human femurs using a 3.5-MHz transducer. Six methods were tested to determine BADC. The recommended method measures the time slope of the natural log of the rectified signal. Measured values of BADC ranged from approximately 0.1 μs^-1 to 0.6 μs^-1. Moderate to strong correlations (Spearman's ρ >0.7) were found between BADC and the density and microstructural characteristics of the specimens determined using X-ray microcomputed tomography. The results of this study suggest that BADC may be able to detect changes in the density and microstructure of cancellous bone caused by osteoporosis and other diseases.

正在开发超声波反向散射技术来检测骨质疏松症引起的骨骼变化。本研究引入了一种新技术，该技术测量反向散射信号幅度的指数衰减，该幅度由称为反向散射幅度衰减常数 (BADC) 的参数量化。使用 3.5-MHz 换能器对来自 14 个人股骨的 54 块松质骨样本进行了测量。测试了六种方法来确定 BADC。推荐的方法测量整流信号的自然对数的时间斜率。BADC 的测量值范围从大约 0.1 μs ^-1到 0.6 μs ^-1. 在 BADC 和使用 X 射线显微计算机断层扫描确定的样本的密度和微观结构特征之间发现了中度到强相关性（Spearman 的 ρ > 0.7）。这项研究的结果表明，BADC 可能能够检测由骨质疏松症和其他疾病引起的松质骨密度和微观结构的变化。