The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jul. 17, 1990
Filed:
Jul. 01, 1988
George W Pratt, Jr, Wayland, MA (US);
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA (US);
Abstract
A system for analyzing bone conditions, particularly (but not solely) for diagnosing osteoporosis and periodontal bone disease in humans. An ultrasonic signal (generally a pulse) having components in a range from about 50 kHz to about 600 kHz (and preferably to about 3 MHz) is launched transdermally into a bony member such as the patella, and received after passage therethrough. Scattering of the incident wave energy in the bony member, and absorption and phase delay in the tissue, cause the transmission to vary in both amplitude and phase as a function of frequency. A multivariable analysis is performed on a plurality of variables characterizing the signals transmitted through, reflected from or scattered by the bony member and soft tissue. The measured parameter values characterize the bone architecture and are compared with the statistics for one or more groups having known bone condition, to yield a probabilistic diagnosis of bone condition. The measured variables include the area, width at half power and peak frequency of the received power spectrum, as well as the second, third and fourth moments of the received spectrum, skewness, kurtosis and the propagation velocity through the bony member.