Bone atrophy is one of the manifestations of renal osteodystrophy. To measure the grade of atrophy, some methods as X-ray techniques have been applied, that is, 2nd metacarpal index, contour of vertebrae and trabecula. However, it is difficult to detect slight difference of alteration by these methods, moreover, these have disadvantage with subjective measurement. So we have measured BMC of radius by using BMA (Nowland).
1) BMC tend to be lowered with prolongation of dialysis, however, correlation between BMC and duration of dialysis is higher in BMA than in Nordin's Hand Score.
2) As for the alteration of BMC in the short term by the treatment of active D3, BMC is superior in detecting the slight alteration than Hand Score. BMA offer a better reliable aid in the study of BMC.
