The current gold standard to diagnose age-related bone loss and osteoporosis is the measurement of the Bone Mineral Density (BMD), which is a measure of the amount of mineral per total bone volume determined by Dual Energy X-ray Absorptiometry (DEXA). BMD is highly correlated to bone mass density when measured in the spine, wrist and femoral neck. However, a significant number of women diagnosed with osteoporosis based on a BMD test do not suffer fractures, whereas many women with normal BMD do. These studies demonstrated that BMD measurements lack both sensitivity and specificity to effectively identify patients with decreased bone strength and at risk of fracture, indicating that other factors besides bone mass density play an important role in osteoporosis: bone microarchitecture, anisotropy and tissue composition. Unfortunately, it is not possible for mass density-based approaches to reveal the architectural aspects of bone that influence the strength and risk of fracture in bone's complex structure. Bone images from peripheral quantitative computed tomography (pQCT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can provide measurements of trabecular microarchitecture, and produce 3D numerical models that are used in finite element analysis (FEA) to estimate the mechanical properties of bone. However, the wide use of these imaging technologies to assess bone loss is limited by their high cost, the resolution of their images and the X-ray dose associated with pQCT. The incidence of osteoporotic fractures in the ageing skeleton is highly associated with impaired bone mechanical properties. Therefore, the general objective of this proposal is to investigate an alternative approach of bone fragility assessment that is neither based on BMD nor FEA from bone images, but based on measurements of the actual mechanical behavior of bone. We propose testing a novel mechanical-function criterion based on the anisotropic elastic constants of trabecular bone and a means to assess such mechanical properties non-invasively using Poroelastic Ultrasound Tomography (PEUT). Anisotropic changes of bone do result in weak (impaired) and strong (functional) mechanical directions within the same bone volume, leading to compromised mechanical function, or increased fracture risk when bone is loaded in the impaired directions. Because the trabecular stiffness are obtained from PEUT -a high frequency mechanical test- it naturally integrates the effect of both bone quantity (i.e., BMD, BV/TV, or porosity) and bone quality (i.e., microarchitecture, anisotropy, tissue composition) into a measurement of the directional-dependent mechanical properties of bone. Thus, the PEUT approach is expected to provide direct information on bone mechanical function, which should have higher sensitivity and specificity to distinguish patients at risk of fracture than BMD measurements. With the development of this non-invasive poroelastic ultrasound tomography approach, we expect to provide an alternative paradigm for assessment of bone loss and osteoporosis based in actual changes of bone mechanical properties. This approach may be at the origin of a conceptual shift on the way we understand and assess bone loss, advancing our understanding of bone mechanical function as a directional-dependent parameter (tensorial quantity) as opposed to a scalar-valued quantity (BMD).
The proposed study has the potential to advance our understanding of mechanical function bone of using ultrasound. Achievement of the proposed aims would provide a novel approach to improve the assessment of bone loss. The development of new diagnostic tools to better measure bone loss and osteoporosis is of major significance to public healthcare in general.
