The potential of digital X-ray radiogrammetry (DXR) in the assessment of osteopenia in children with chronic inflammatory bowel disease.

Background: Loss of bone mass is a known complication of chronic inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in children. The gold standard in the evaluation of bone mineral density (BMD) is dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA).

Objective: In this preliminary study we evaluated digital X-ray radiogrammetry (DXR) which estimates BMD (DXR-BMD) from hand radiographs in children with IBD.