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Physical Review E, 79(2), 021903 (2009) DOI:10.1103/PhysRevE.79.021903
Three dimensional quantification of structures in trabecular bone using measures of complexity
N. Marwan, J. Kurths, J. S. Thomsen, D. Felsenberg, P. SaparinThe study of pathological changes of bone is an important task in diagnostic procedures of patients with metabolic bone diseases such as osteoporosis as well as in monitoring the health state of astronauts during long-term space flights. The recent availability of high resolution 3D imaging of bone challenges the development of data analysis techniques able to assess changes of the 3D micro-architecture of trabecular bone. We introduce a novel approach based on spatial geometrical properties and define new structural measures of complexity for 3D image analysis. These measures evaluate different aspects of organisation and complexity of 3D structures, such as complexity of its surface or shape variability. We apply these measures to 3D data acquired by high resolution micro-computed tomography (mCT) from human proximal tibiae and lumbar vertebrae at different stages of osteoporotic bone loss. The outcome is compared to the results of conventional static histomorphometry and exhibits clear relationships between the analysed geometrical features of trabecular bone and loss of bone density, but also indicate that the new measures reveal additional information about the structural composition of bone, which were not revealed by the static histomorphometry. Finally, we have studied the dependency of the developed measures of complexity on the spatial resolution of the mCT data sets.
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