Bone fracture is a major health problem in old population with its complications leading to mortality and morbidity. Therapies mostly involve preventing bone mass loss. Individuals with high bone mass, however, may still suffer fractures suggesting that additional components such as bone microstructure and composition may be responsible for increased fracture risk in the elderly. The relationship of bone constituents with bone fragility, however, is not well-understood. A better understanding of these relationships will help improving therapies by controlling the relevant biological processes.

Bone is a composite material with many constituents such as osteons embedded with vascular channels, collagen fibers, mineral crystals, etc. The nature of interfacing between these constituents makes bone a more complex material. Bone also has a structure that adapts itself, both internally and externally, to better fit its needs. This suggested that, unlike man-made materials, a relationship between material properties and structural properties may exist. Because bone has some similarities with engineering composite materials and also experiences microcracks, a fracture mechanics approach would be more appropriate for investigating its fragility. Choosing mode I and mode II fracture toughness (GIc and Gllc, respectively) as indicators of bone fragility, their relationship with bone microstructure (porosity, osteon morphology, mineral crystal imperfection and microdamage), composition (density, mineral, organic, water and collagen content) and macrostructure (thickness, diameter and moment of inertia of the shaft and angle between the femoral neck and femoral shaft from different views) was investigated. Use of x-ray radiogrammetry for detecting the latter was tested. Differences among the femoral shaft, femoral neck and the tibia were investigated for an age range of 22-94 years.

In general, fracture toughness increased with increasing bone quantity. However, the influence of bone quality, i.e., mineralization, water content, osteon size, area and number, microdamage and crystallinity differed between different locations, age groups and fracture mode. Fracture toughness was also significantly correlated with clinical parameters such as cortical index and Singh index, significance level being dependent upon bone location, fracture mode and age. Several mechanistic models to predict how bone microstructure influences bone fracture toughness were proposed based on experimental results and available literature.