Evaluation of differences between fan-beam and pencil-beam densitometers

We compared the bone and body composition results in vivo on two bone densitometers using fan-beam geometry (EXPERT and PRODIGY) with those using pencil-beam geometry (DPX). Measurements were made on large groups of adults ranging in weight from about 50 to 120 kg. Both spine and femur neck BMD on the fan-beam densitometers averaged within 1% of the pencil-beam results, and there was no magnitude dependence of the results by Bland-Altman analysis. Total body BMC and BMD on the PRODIGY and DPX were congruent, but on the EXPERT, BMC was about 2% lower and BMD 2% higher than corresponding values on the DPX. Soft-tissue composition was closely congruent for the PRODIGY and DPX; the comparable EXPERT-DPX differences showed greater scatter but no significant magnitude dependence. The smaller fan-angle of the PRODIGY (4 degrees) probably contributed to its better congruence to pencil-beam results compared with the EXPERT (12 degrees).