Comprehensive assessment of bone quality using clinical photon-counting detector CT

ABSTRACT
More than 10 million Americans are affected by osteoporosis, and an estimated 40 million Americans are at
risk of osteoporosis from decreased bone mass. In addition to primary osteoporosis affecting post-menopausal
women and the elderly, secondary osteoporosis from conditions such as plasma cell disorders, lupus and
hyperparathyroidism also increases the risk of skeletal fractures. The spine is a prevalent site for osteoporotic
fractures resulting in substantial morbidity due to debilitating consequences such as pain and immobility.
Current diagnostic approach for osteoporosis evaluation such as dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) lack
the spatial resolution to characterize trabecular microarchitecture, a crucial marker of bone quality. Considering
the high socioeconomic burden related to skeletal fragility, there is an unmet clinical need to develop a
quantitative bone characterization technique that can comprehensively measure cortical and trabecular
microstructures in vivo.
Photon-counting detector (PCD) CT has been recently introduced for clinical use. We have demonstrated
numerous technical and clinical benefits of PCD-CT for musculoskeletal imaging. A single PCD-CT scan offers
both high spatial resolution (110 µm) and spectrally resolved x-ray data which are beneficial for characterizing
trabecular morphometry and volumetric bone density. The long-term goal of our work is to extract imaging
biomarkers of bone quality for routine assessment of skeletal fragility and guide timely initiation and monitoring
of pharmacologic therapies in patients at high risk of osteoporotic fractures. The objective of this proposal is to
demonstrate the clinical utility of PCD-CT in characterizing bone quality in the vertebrae of patients undergoing
pharmacologic therapy for osteoporosis. We propose to meet this objective by first developing and validating a
quantitative spine PCD-CT imaging methodology using cadavers and compare the results to a high-resolution
reference standard (micro-CT) in Aim 1, and clinically translate the imaging methodology in Aim 2 to
demonstrate in vivo bone quantification in osteoporotic patients. The significance of our proposed technique
is that it will enable accurate characterization of bone quality on a clinically available CT system for direct or
opportunistic bone quality assessment.

Grant Number: 1R21AR084126-01A1
NIH Institute/Center: NIH
Principal Investigator: Francis Baffour