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The Prospects of Estimating Trabecular Bone Tissue Properties from the Combination of Ultrasound, Dual‐Energy X‐Ray Absorptiometry, Microcomputed Tomography, and Microfinite Element Analysis
Author(s) -
Van Lenthe G. H.,
Van Den Bergh J. P. W.,
Hermus A. R. M. M.,
Huiskes R.
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
journal of bone and mineral research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.882
H-Index - 241
eISSN - 1523-4681
pISSN - 0884-0431
DOI - 10.1359/jbmr.2001.16.3.550
Subject(s) - elastic modulus , ultrasound , materials science , biomedical engineering , stiffness , tomography , bone tissue , x ray microtomography , bone density , young's modulus , osteoporosis , medicine , composite material , radiology , pathology
Abstract Osteoporosis commonly is assessed by bone quantity, using bone mineral density (BMD) measurements from dual‐energy X‐ray absorptiometry (DXA). However, such a measure gives neither information about the integrity of the trabecular architecture nor about the mechanical properties of the constituting trabeculae. We investigated the feasibility of deriving the elastic modulus of the trabeculae (the tissue modulus) from computer simulation of mechanical testing by microfinite element analysis (μFEA) in combination with measurements of ultrasound speed of sound (SOS) and BMD measurements. This approach was tested on 15 postmortem bovine bone cubes. The apparent elastic modulus of the specimens was estimated from SOS measurements in combination with BMD. Then the trabecular morphology was reconstructed using microcomputed tomography (μCT). From the reconstruction a mesh for μFEA was derived, used to simulate mechanical testing. The tissue modulus was found by correlating the apparent moduli of the specimens as assessed by ultrasound with the ones as determined with μFEA. A mean tissue modulus of 4.5 GPa (SD, 0.69) was found. When adjusting the μFEA‐determined elastic moduli of the entire specimens with their calculated tissue modulus, an overall correlation of R 2 = 96% with ultrasound‐predicted values was obtained. We conclude that the apparent elastic stiffness characteristics as determined from ultrasound correlate linearly with those from μFEA. From both methods in combination, the elastic stiffness of the mineralized tissue can be determined as an estimator for mechanical tissue quality. This method can already be used for biopsy specimens, and potentially could be applicable in vivo as well, when clinical CT or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) tools with adequate resolution reach the market. In this way, mechanical bone quality could be estimated more accurately in clinical practice.