Bone Abstracts

Bone resorption and deposition occur in a tightly regulated fashion reflecting the coupled activities of osteoclasts and osteoblasts. Several pathological conditions perturb this balance between bone synthesis and resorption, including osteoporosis and skeletal metastases. The uncoupling of remodeling activities contributes to disseminated tumor cells homing to the bone and to tumor growth in bone. Therefore, a reliable marker of bone remodeling would be useful to provide a st...

Bone resorption and formation occur in a tightly regulated fashion reflecting the coupled activities of osteoclasts and osteoblasts. Several pathological conditions perturb this balance, including osteoporosis and skeletal metastases. In the case of metastases, the uncoupling of resorption and formation activities contributes to disseminated tumor cells homing to the bone and to tumor growth within the bone in highly localized regions. Therefore, a site-specific marker of bone...

New treatment agents against osteoporosis may not only lead to an improved trabecular structure, but can probably also strengthen the cortex. To assess this treatment effects by means of QCT, one has to deal with significant partial volume effects observing this very thin, but compact structure. A new method for cortical thickness estimation has been developed using an analytical deconvolution approach. After estimating the point-spread-function (PSF) of a scanner/kernel combi...

The pathogenesis of skeletal fragility in diabetes mellitus is poorly defined and efficient therapies are limited. Zucker diabetic fatty (ZDF) rats with type 2 diabetes mellitus display low bone mass and delayed bone defect healing. We tested whether intermittent treatment with human parathyroid hormone 1–84 (PTH) increases bone mass and bone defect regeneration in diabetic rats.A subcritical gap defect was created at the femur of 10 weeks old diabe...

Multiple myeloma (MM) is associated with lytic bone destruction leading to high fracture incidence in the vertebrae. Accurate assessment of fracture risk is required for physicians to determine the necessity for surgery. This risk is currently determined by examining lesion size or number; however, this method does not consider the biomechanical attributes of the bone. Finite element (FE) modelling can simulate mechanical loading on vertebral bodies, and estimate mechanical in...

Diabetes mellitus results in increased skeletal fragility through reduced bone mineral density and altered collagen structure. How these changes affect bone mechanics at the tissue level remains largely unclear. Anti-osteoporosis medications improve bone mass, but whether they can fully restore tissue strength in diabetic bone, where collagen quality is compromised, has not been fully elucidated. The objective of this study was to determine the effect of type 2 diabetes mellit...

Bone mineral density (BMD) as measured by quantitative computed tomography (QCT) is biased by the variable marrow composition since marrow fat reduces the apparent BMD. We developed a marrow densitometry (MD) method that identifies subvolumes in the vertebrae that consist of bone marrow only (bone voids) and determines their average mineral equivalent density values. The method was developed for use with in vivo high resolution QCT (HR-QCT). HR-QCT still has limited s...