Correlations between Acoustic Properties and Bone Mineral Density in Bovine Femoral Trabecular Bone In Vitro

Abstract

The purpose of the present study is to investigate the correlations between acoustic properties, such as speed of sound and normalized broadband ultrasound attenuation, and bone mineral density in femur with high fracture risk. The speed of sound and the normalized broadband ultrasound attenuation in 15 bovine femoral trabecular bone samples in vitro were measured by using a through-transmission method with two matched pairs of ultrasonic transducers with center frequencies of 0.5 and 1.0 MHz. The volumetric bone mineral density of the trabecular bone samples was measured by using micro-computed tomography. The bone mineral density exhibited strong correlations with both the speed of sound and the normalized broadband ultrasound attenuation measured by using the 0.5 and the 1.0 MHz transducers. The highest correlation was found between the bone mineral density and the normalized broadband ultrasound attenuation measured by using the 0.5 MHz ultrasonic transducers. The results suggest that the acoustic properties measured in the femur in vitro can be used as indices for the prediction of femoral bone mineral density.