μCT-based trabecular anisotropy can be reproducibly computed from HR-pQCT scans using the triangulated bone surface

The trabecular structure can be assessed at the wrist or tibia via high-resolution peripheral quantitative computed tomography (HR-pQCT). Yet on this modality, the performance of the existing methods, evaluating trabecular anisotropy is usually overlooked, especially in terms of reproducibility. We thus proposed to compare the TRI routine used by SCANCO Medical AG (Brüttisellen, Switzerland), the classical mean intercept length (MIL), and the grey-level structure tensor (GST) to the mean surface length (MSL), a new method for evaluating a second-order fabric tensor based on the triangulation of the bone surface. The distal radius of 24 fresh-frozen human forearms was scanned three times via HR-pQCT protocols (61μm, 82μm nominal voxel size), dissected, and imaged via micro computed tomography (μCT) at 16μm nominal voxel size. After registering the scans, we compared for each resolution the fabric tensors, determined by the mentioned techniques for 182 trabecular regions of interest. We then evaluated the reproducibility of the fabric information measured by HR-pQCT via precision errors. On μCT, TRI and GST were respectively the best and worst surrogates for MIL_μCT (MIL computed on μCT) in terms of eigenvalues and main direction of anisotropy. On HR-pQCT, however, MSL provided the best approximation of MIL_μCT. Surprisingly, surface-based approaches (TRI, MSL) also proved to be more precise than both MIL and GST. Our findings confirm that MSL can reproducibly estimate MIL_μCT, the current gold standard. MSL thus enables the direct mapping of the fabric-dependent material properties required in homogenised HR-pQCT-based finite element models.