Can the mechanical trabecular bone quality be estimated reliably from mean intercept length or other morphological parameters?

摘要

The mechanical quality of trabecular bone is commonly assessed from its threedimensional elastic stiffness characteristics. A goal of bone biomechanics is to estimate these characteristics directly from trabecular morphology. It has been shown earlier that reasonable correlations can be found between experimentally determined elastic parameters and morphological ones, such as volume fraction, in combination with `fabric', an expression of trabecular directionality. Fabric is commonly measured by Mean Intercept Length (MIL). Mathematical relationships have been proposed to predict elastic parameters directly from apparent density and MIL. Validation studies have shown good results, relative to experiments and to finite-element computer simulations. The question posed here was whether these relationships are valid in general, and applicable to all kinds of trabecular bone. In addition, the effectiveness of measures for fabric alternative to MIL was studied.