• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.103-111
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• 2015

The present study investigated the influence of thick cortical endplates on the ultrasonic properties of trabecular bone in a femur with a high fracture risk. Twelve trabecular bone samples were prepared from bovine femurs, and acrylic plates with thicknesses of 1.25, 1.80, and 2.75 mm were manufactured to simulate the cortical endplates using acrylic with a density and a sound speed similar to cortical bone. Although the thickness of the acrylic plates attached to the two sides of the trabecular bone increased, high correlations were observed between the speed of sound and the apparent bone density of the trabecular bone, with Pearson's correlation coefficients of 0.80-0.86. High correlations were also observed between the attenuation coefficient at 0.5 MHz and the apparent bone density of the trabecular bone, with Pearson's correlation coefficients of 0.84-0.91. These results suggest that the speed of sound and attenuation coefficient at a specific frequency measured in a femur with relatively thick cortical endplates compared to the calcaneus could be used as indices for predicting the bone mineral density of the femur.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.181-189
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• 2013

The purpose of the present study is to investigate the effect of cortical bone on acoustic properties of trabecular bone, such as speed of sound (SOS) and normalized broadband ultrasound attenuation (nBUA), in bovine femur in vitro. Twelve trabecular bone samples and three cortical bone plates with thicknesses of 1.00, 1.47, and 2.00 mm were extracted from the proximal end of two bovine femurs. The correlations between acoustic properties and trabecular apparent bone density were also examined before and after attaching a cortical bone plate to the trabecular bone samples. SOS increased linearly with increasing thickness of the cortical plate attached to one side of ultrasonic incidence of the trabecular bone samples, whereas nBUA showed a nonlinear dependence on the thickness of the cortical plate. All the SOS (r = 0.95-0.97) and nBUA (r = 0.53-0.73) measurements with and without the cortical bone plate with various thicknesses were found to exhibit high correlations with the trabecular apparent bone density. These results imply that the acoustic properties measured in the femur with lateral cortical layers in vitro can be useful indices for the prediction of trabecular bone mineral density.