Bone volume fraction and fabric anisotropy are better determinants of trabecular bone stiffness than other morphological variables

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Maquer, Ghislain¹; Musy, Sarah N.¹; Wandel, Jasmin²; Gross, Thomas³; Zysset, Philippe K.¹

Bone volume fraction and fabric anisotropy are better determinants of trabecular bone stiffness than other morphological variables

J Bone Miner Res. June 2015;30(6):1000-1008

©2014 American Society for Bone and Mineral Research

Affiliations

¹Institute for Surgical Technology and Biomechanics, University of Bern, Stauffacherstrasse 78 3014, Bern, Switzerl

²Institute for Risks and Extremes, Bern University of Applied Sciences, Jlcoweg 1 3400, Burgdorf, Switzerland

³Institute of Lightweight Design and Structural Biomechanics, Vienna University of Technology, Vienna 1040, Austria
Abstract and keywords

As our population ages, more individuals suffer from osteoporosis. This disease leads to impaired trabecular architecture and increased fracture risk. It is essential to understand how morphological and mechanical properties of the cancellous bone are related. Morphology‐elasticity relationships based on bone volume fraction (BV/TV) and fabric anisotropy explain up to 98% of the variation in elastic properties. Yet, other morphological variables such as individual trabeculae segmentation (ITS) and trabecular bone score (TBS) could improve the stiffness predictions. A total of 743 micro–computed tomography (μCT) reconstructions of cubic trabecular bone samples extracted from femur, radius, vertebrae, and iliac crest were analyzed. Their morphology was assessed via 25 variables and their stiffness tensor (C_FE) was computed from six independent load cases using micro finite element (μFE) analyses. Variance inflation factors were calculated to evaluate collinearity between morphological variables and decide upon their inclusion in morphology‐elasticity relationships. The statistically admissible morphological variables were included in a multiple linear regression model of the dependent variable C_FE. The contribution of each independent variable was evaluated (ANOVA). Our results show that BV/TV is the best determinant of C_FE (r²_adj = 0.889), especially in combination with fabric anisotropy (r²_adj = 0.968). Including the other independent predictors hardly affected the amount of variance explained by the model (r²_adj = 0.975). Across all anatomical sites, BV/TV explained 87% of the variance of the bone elastic properties. Fabric anisotropy further described 10% of the bone stiffness, but the improvement in variance explanation by adding other independent factors was marginal (<1%). These findings confirm that BV/TV and fabric anisotropy are the best determinants of trabecular bone stiffness and show, against common belief, that other morphological variables do not bring any further contribution. These overall conclusions remain to be confirmed for specific bone diseases and postelastic properties.

Keywords: Micro FE; ELASTIC PROPERTIES; BONE MICROSTRUCTURE; TRABECULAR BONE SCORE; INDIVIDUAL TRABECULAE SEGMENTATION
Links

DOI: 10.1002/jbmr.2437

PubMed: 25529534

WoS: 000354624500008
History

Received: 2014-11-19

Revised: 2014-12-8

Accepted: 2014-12-14

Online: 2015-05-18

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