[The use of conventional roentgen studies in the diagnosis and therapy of osteoporosis].

Bone densitometry has replaced conventional X-ray imaging in the diagnosis of bone loss. Conventional X-ray techniques however, are still the source of choice in the diagnosis of fractures in patients with osteoporosis and in the differential diagnosis of atraumatic fractures. The differential diagnosis of vertebral fractures includes metastases of solid malignant tumours, such as breast, lung or renal cancer or manifestation of systemic malignant diseases such as myeloma. The differential diagnosis of long bone fractures includes osteolytic metastases as well, and in the younger patients also bone cysts, bone tumours or hereditary skeletal diseases. Objective techniques have been developed, which allow the identification of beginning fractures but also the determination of the extent of vertebral deformation (SDI).