(*) Summary:  Over the past 10 years, osteoporosis has emerged as a major clinical challenge for physicians and patients, with regard both to its prevalence and to the morbidity and mortality of associated fractures. Osteoporosis may be characterized by low bone density and its significance is expected to grow as the population of the world both increases and ages. Our purpose here is to model human bone mineral density estimated through dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry, using local volumetric distance spline interpolants. Interpolating the values means the construction of a function F(x,y,z) that mimics the relationship implied by the data (xi,yi,zi;fi), in such a way that F(xi,yi,zi)=fi, i=1,2,...,n, where x,y and z represent, respectively, age, weight and height. This strategy greatly enhances the ability to accurately express the patient’s bone density measurements, with the potential to become a framework for bone densitometry in clinical practice. The usefulness of our model is demonstrated in 424 patients. The relevance of our results for diagnosing and preventing osteoporosis will be discussed.

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(**) Biodata:  Dr. Rita Cassia-Moura was born in Brazil and she obtained a Ph.D. in Biological Sciences. She is Head of the Biophysics Division of the Pernambuco University, Brazil (since 1991). In addition, she is associated with the Secretariat of Health of the State of Pernambuco as a Consultant to a State Medical Laboratory (since 1990). Dr. Cassia-Moura works as a leader in some tasks concerning the scientific projects developed by her Department. She was Junior Associate of the ICTP (from 1997 to 2000), and since 2004 she has been a Regular Associate of our Centre. Her field of expertise is Biophysics and Neurophysics, and her main research interest is biological modelling of both osteoporosis and memory processes. She has delivered some excellent seminars on Physics of the Living State in the Applied Physics Scientific Section of the Abdus Salam ICTP. Her previous visits have led to fruitful research interactions with other Associate Members of our Centre.