The Effect of Micro-Computed Tomography Thresholding Methods on Bone Micromorphometric Analysis

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Orthopedics
• Radiology

Background:

• Micro computed tomography (micro CT) is crucial for analyzing bone micromorphometric parameters in 2D and 3D.
• These parameters are vital for studies on new bone formation, tissue engineering, and biomaterials.
• Image segmentation using different threshold methods can yield inconsistent results in bone analysis.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare the efficacy of various thresholding methods for analyzing bone micromorphometric parameters in mouse tibia.
• To evaluate the agreement between different thresholding techniques in micro CT image segmentation.
• To identify the most reliable thresholding methods for consistent quantification of mouse bone structure.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a dataset of 15 mouse tibiae for micro CT analysis.
• Applied multiple thresholding methods for image segmentation of the bone structures.
• Quantified key bone micromorphometric parameters including bone volume, trabecular number, connectivity, and separation using CTAn software.

Main Results:

• All tested threshold methods showed some level of agreement for bone micromorphometric analyses.
• Good agreement was observed for connectivity and trabecular thickness parameters across different methods.
• Limited agreement was found for other parameters such as bone volume and trabecular separation.

Conclusions:

• The choice of thresholding method significantly impacts the quantification of mouse tibia micromorphometric parameters.
• Connectivity and trabecular thickness are relatively robust parameters across different segmentation methods.
• Standardizing thresholding methods is essential for reliable and comparable bone analysis across research groups.