Common use of Study Hypotheses Clause in Contracts

Study Hypotheses. 1. Lateral VFA scans of the lumbar spine and PWV, a measurement of aortic stiffness, offer simple non-invasive methods for identifying subjects at risk of AC and subsequent CVD, which could be implemented into the clinical management of patients with OP. 2. Low BMD is associated with a greater degree of AC in postmenopausal women. 3. Bisphosphonate users have less AC compared to non-bisphosphonate users. 4. Bisphosphonates decrease AC as well as increase BMD offering an effective treatment for both OP and VC. In order to meet the research objectives as detailed in Section 2.2 the study was presented as five individual study chapters to test the study hypotheses as detailed in Section 2.3: This chapter evaluated lateral VFA imaging – primarily used for the assessment of vertebral deformity - to determine whether the method may offer a quick and reproducible method for quantifying AAC. Furthermore, this study evaluated the use of moderate dose, non-diagnostic, non-contrast CT as a reproducible alternative to higher dose diagnostic CT methods used in clinical practice to quantify VC, and also evaluated three calcium scoring methods to establish which would provide the most expedient and operator friendly method of scoring calcification using non-diagnostic CT.