Identifying and Assessing Inter-Muscular Fat at the Distal Diaphyseal Femur Measured by Peripheral Quantitative Computed Tomography (pQCT)

Introduction: Inter-/intramuscular fat can be assessed with peripheral Quantitative Computed Tomography (pQCT) and is of interest as an indicator “muscle quality.” Typical pQCT scan sites (forearm, lower leg) have a low amount inter-/intramuscular fat, however distal diaphyseal femur conspicuous been identified potentially more prudent sites, even in healthy adolescents. However, current state the art analysis methods require labor-intensive manual segmentation scan. The purpose present study was to evaluate reliability novel open source automated enclosing convex polygon approach (source code https://github.com/tjrantal/pQCT, commit cec9bce) quantify from femoral scans adults. Methodology: (25% tibial length knee joint towards hip) 27 adults aged 18–50 yr were scanned twice, 1 wk apart, using pQCT. Subcutaneous muscle, marrow areas, corresponding densities evaluated method we reported previously, well method. Results: session-to-session assessments fair excellent previously indicated by intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC2,1) ranging 0.45 1.00, while produced (ICC2,1 0.78–1.00). Conclusion: Distal appears informative site for evaluation