Bone microarchitecture assessment by high resolution peripheral computarized tomography. Clinical aplications

Abstract

Decreased bone strength is a key risk factor for osteoporotic fracture. Bone mass is an important determinant of bone strength but bone microarchitecture and material properties are also important contributors. High resolution peripheral computed tomography (HR-pQCT) is a new noninvasive imaging technique to assess bone microarchitecture in vivo, with its voxel size of 82 μmm, it can separately quantify cortical and trabecular volumetric bone mineral density. Its principal limitation is its peripheral use only in radius and tibia. It has been recently used to assess bone microarchitecture in several clinical situations as osteoporotic fractures, idiopathic osteoporosis in premenopausal women and chronic kidney disease. These noninvasive imaging techniques have the potential to provide important information on the microarchitectural changes that predispose to fractures in postmenopausal women, elderly men and many other situations.