Correlation of Bone Quality to Biomechanical Response: Large-Scale Study Methodology
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Date
2013-05
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Publisher
The Ohio State University
Abstract
It has been previously shown that the quality of human bone can affect its fragility. This can have important implications in the field of injury biomechanics, in which attempts are made to elucidate the conditions under which fractures may occur. To understand the results of such research, we must establish what constitutes a “normal” bone quality and how bone quality relates to biomechanical response. Prior work has shown that bone microstructure of bilateral rib pairs varies significantly between individuals but does not vary within an individual. This implies that bilateral rib pairs can be used to examine the relationship between bone quality and biomechanical response. Previously employed methods, however, are inefficient to utilize in a large population study and an efficient, standardized methodology to assess the overall quality of a bone and relate it to its biomechanical response is needed. The purpose of this work is to develop improved methodologies in order to lay the groundwork for the development of a large-sample study of the relationship between bone quality and biomechanical response. Forty cross-sectional slides of bilateral rib pairs from 10 subjects for which variable measurements are available were utilized as the initial dataset. Methods to improve construction of cross-section images, facilitate microfeature detection and standardize statistical methodology were developed and evaluated. This study defined new methodologies to automate the image reconstruction process and developed a new, standardized statistical model that can be utilized in a large-sample study. Methods to facilitate microfeature detection in the rib cross-section images were not fully developed for use in a large-sample study, but this study laid the initial groundwork for such methods. These methodological improvements can be built into the framework for an efficient, standardized methodology to investigate the relationship between bone quality and biomechanical response in a normal population of human ribs.
Description
2013 Denman Undergraduate Research Forum, Honorable Mention
Keywords
bone quality, bone microstructure, biomechanical response, rib