An anatomically shaped lower body model for CT scanning of cadaver femurs

Bone specific, CT-based finite element (FE) analyses have great potential to accurately predict the fracture risk of deteriorated bones. However, it has been shown that differences exist between FE-models of femora scanned in a water basin or scanned in situ within the human body, as caused by differences in measured bone mineral densities (BMD). In this study we hypothesized that these differences can be reduced by re-creating the patient CT-conditions by using an anatomically shaped physical model of the lower body. BMD distributions were obtained from four different femora that were scanned under three conditions: (1) in situ within the cadaver body, (2) in a water basin and (3) in the body model. The BMD of the three scanning protocols were compared at two locations: proximally, in the trabecular bone of the femoral head, and in the cortical bone of the femoral shaft. Proximally, no significant differences in BMD were found between the in situ scans and the scans in the body model, whereas the densities from the water basin scans were on average 10.8% lower than in situ. In the femoral shaft the differences between the three scanning protocols were insignificant. In conclusion, the body model better approached the in situ situation than a water basin. Future studies can use this body model to mimic patient situations and to develop protocols to improve the performance of the FE-models in actual patients.