Media - Press releases 28/05/2026

  • Findings support the use of routine X-rays to help identify individuals at very high bone fragility risk who may benefit from further bone health evaluation
  • TBS Reveal™ demonstrated robust performance across international and ethnically diverse populations in a multicentre dataset comprising 18,858 radiographs of the lumbar spine with paired DXA scans from 11,138 adults

Geneva, Switzerland – May 28, 2026 – New research published in eClinicalMedicine, part of The Lancet Discovery Science (Validation of a deep learning model for bone fragility detection from conventional radiographs: an international cohort study), shows that TBS Reveal™, an AI software under development by Medimaps Group, can identify individuals at risk of fracture due to bone fragility directly from routine X-rays that include two or more lumbar vertebrae.

Fragility fractures are among the most common, costly, and preventable causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide, yet most individuals who sustain a fragility fracture were never identified as at-risk beforehand.

Two persistent challenges help explain this gap. First, current screening pathways rely heavily on DXA, a dedicated imaging modality that is not universally accessible. Second, while DXA-derived BMD is central to osteoporosis diagnosis, BMD alone does not fully capture fracture risk, with many fragility fractures occurring in individuals with osteopenia or even normal BMD.

Medimaps Group — the creators of TBS (Trabecular Bone Score), the global standard for bone microarchitecture assessment from DXA — designed TBS Reveal to address both of these challenges. TBS Reveal derives a composite Bone Fragility Index, combining BMD with Medimaps Group’s patented TBS technology to assess both bone quantity and quality in a single opportunistic measurement. It does this by applying advanced image feature analysis and artificial intelligence to routine radiographs of the spine, abdomen, chest, or pelvis that include two or more lumbar vertebrae.

TBS is an established index of bone microarchitecture, which reflects the internal structure or quality of bone tissue. While BMD captures how much bone is present, microarchitecture determines how well that bone is organised. Supported by over 1,600 publications and integrated into clinical guidelines worldwide, TBS is an established complement to BMD in fracture risk assessment and the scientific foundation on which TBS Reveal is built.

“This study reflects the next evolution of Medimaps’ bone health strategy,” said Professor Didier Hans, also co-founder and CEO of Medimaps Group. “For more than a decade, we have helped clinicians go beyond bone density alone by providing TBS from DXA, adding clinically relevant information on bone microarchitecture. With TBS Reveal, we are extending that scientific foundation to routine X-rays — helping close a major clinical gap by identifying patients at high bone fragility risk who may otherwise remain undetected until a fragility fracture occurs.”

The multinational study analysed over 18,000 paired radiographs and lumbar spine DXA scans from 11,000 adults across five clinical sites in Europe and the United States. Results demonstrated consistent model performance across internal and external cohorts, including across ethnically diverse populations:

  • Specificity of 88 – 96% across external cohorts, supporting a low false-positive rate
  • Accuracy of up to 90% in external validation
  • AUC of 0.83 – 0.86 across all cohorts

“Routine X-rays are performed every day across healthcare systems, often in patients who may already have unrecognised bone fragility risk,” says Professor Karen Hind, VP of Clinical Affairs, Research & Innovation at Medimaps Group. “TBS Reveal is designed to help turn these existing images into an opportunity for earlier identification, so that patients at very high risk can be referred for confirmatory bone health assessment before a first fragility fracture occurs.”

TBS Reveal™ is an investigational AI software currently under development. It is not approved or cleared for clinical use.

About Medimaps Group

Founded by medical practitioners and clinical researchers, Medimaps combines Swiss innovation with a global presence to lead in bone health management. We provide healthcare professionals worldwide with advanced AI-driven software that enables comprehensive bone microarchitecture assessment.

Our passion for musculoskeletal health is grounded in scientific expertise and strengthened through collaborations with world-class academics, clinicians, industry partners, and patient communities. The science behind our imaging applications and robust clinical evidence form the core of Medimaps Group’s identity.

Medimaps Group, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, has offices in the United States and France.
Learn more at www.medimaps.ai.