Assessment Of Bone Trabecular Structure Of The Calcaneus In MRI In Men With Osteoporosis

Objective To use magnetic resonance imaging(MRI)to assess the bone trabecula structure of men with and men without osteoporosis,and to investigate clinical application value.Methods There were 40 men including 18 males end 22 females in the group,The mean age was 45.3 years(32～68 years).Bone densitometry was measured by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry.All the men were divided into the osteoporosis group and the age-matched health control group(BMD normal)according to their bone density.Every group consisted of 20 men. All underwent 3.0T MRI with 3-dimensional gradient echo,right calcaneus sagittal scan.Then the 9 parameters were obtained from the having been processed MR images.The 9 parameters were the connectivity number to ROI area(CN/RA),the ratio of trabecular partition to ROI area (Tb/RA),the ratio of bone marrow partition to ROI area(BM/RA),the ratio of trabecular network skeleton length to ROI area(TL/RA),the average trabecular thickness(Tb.Th),the average trabecular separation(Tb.Sp),the ratio of node count to ROI area(NC/RA),the average node-to-node strut length(ntnSL),the ratio of Euler number to ROI area(EN/RA).The significance of differences between the two groups was calculated by using the unpaired Student t test.Results The 6 of 9(67%)bone trabecula structure parameters including CN/RA,Tb.Th,Tb.Sp,NC/RA,ntnSL,EN/RA from the patients and control subjects showed significant differences(P＜0.05).Especially,difference between the two groups was more significant (P＜0.001)for NC/RA.Conclusion Bone trabecula structure parameters derived from MR images of the calcaneus can distinguish osteoporosis from control group.It is valuable for the bone trabecular micro-architecture in osteoporosis.MR imaging is a modus operandi to evaluate the bone trabecular micro-architecture.