Bone Mineral Density: What Affects The Test
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What Affects the Test
Reasons you may not be able to have the test or why the results may not be helpful include:
- You cannot be correctly positioned during the test.
- You have had a broken bone in the past. This can cause falsely high BMD results.
- You have arthritis of your spine. In this case, the changes caused by arthritis in the spine may not make the spine the best place to measure for osteoporosis.
- You have metal implants from hip replacement surgery or hip fracture.
- You have had an X-ray test that uses barium within 10 days of the BMD test.
| Last updated: | September 23, 2008 |
|---|---|
| Author: | Shannon Erstad, MBA/MPH |
| Reviewed By: | Anne C. Poinier, MD - Internal Medicine, Carla J. Herman, MD, MPH - Geriatrics |
| Editors: | Maria Essig, Tracy Landauer |
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