Pencil Beam & Fan Beam DXA Technology The two most commonly applied bone densitometer technologies (dual energy x-ray absorptiometry, DXA) are pencil beam and fan beam. Both methods rely on the differential absorption of two distinct photon energies - a high and low energy photon. The attenuation of these two photon energies is used to determine bone and soft tissue (fat and lean) components of the body. Pencil Beam densitometers were the first generation of DXA systems to market and are considered the Gold Standard for accuracy1. Initially, whole body scans done using a pencil beam DXA system took up to 30 minutes to complete. As a result of this long scan time fan beam DXA systems were developed to speed-up the testing process and a whole body scan time was reduced to as quick as three minutes. A significant downside to the increased scan speed of fan beam DXA systems was the need to increase the amount of radiation required to complete a scan (in some cases 60 times more). Further, fan beam systems suffer from issues related to magnification and/or distortion of the scans. These magnification issues result in a variation of up to 37% in BMC assessments2,3. 1. Ruetsche, AG, Lippuner, K, Jaeger, P and Casez, JP: Differences between dual x-ray absorptiometry using pencil beam and fan beam modes and their determinants in vivo and in vitro. Journal of Clinical Densitometry. 3:157-166, 2000. 2. Cole, JH, Dowthawaite, JN, Scerpella, TA and van der Meulen, MCH: Correcting fan-beam magnification in clinical densitometry scans of growing subjects. Journal of Clinical Densitometry. 12:322-329, 2009. 3. Cole, JH, Scerpella, TA, van der Meulen, MCH: Fan-beam densitometry of the growing skeleton. Journal of Clinical Densitometry. 8:57-64, 2005. ©Copyright 2015 Norland at Swissray Form No. 600P182 Rev A 5/15 Printed in USA Certified ISO 13485

Whole Body Scan Time In 1999 Norland developed Quikscan technology for their whole-body capable pencil Hologic Explorer Hologic Discovery beam scanners. This proprietary process enables Norland to complete a whole body scan in as little as five minutes, which meets Lunar IDXA Lunar Prodigy or exceeds the scan time of most fan beam DXA systems. Norland optimized pencil beam technology also speeds up the pro- Lunar Bravo cess of finding bone edges which means technologists spend no time defining the bone edges in contrast to what operators must do with fan beam DXA scanners. Hologic Explorer Hologic...