Detection of Fatigue Microdamage in Human Cortical Bone Using Micro-Computed Tomography

INTRODUCTION: Conventional techniques used to image microdamage in cortical bone require the preparation of many histologic sections which is inherently invasive, destructive, two-dimensional, and tedious [1]. These limitations inhibit evaluation of the effects of microdamage on whole bone strength and prohibit detection of microdamage in vivo. Therefore, micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) has been investigated for the detection of microdamage using iodinated [1], lead sulfide [2,3], and barium sulfate (BaSO4) [4,5] contrast agents. Damage accumulation ahead of a notch in bovine cortical bone beams loaded in cyclic four-point bending was stained in vitro by precipitation of BaSO4 and imaged using micro-CT [4]. The objective of this study was to detect the presence and location of fatigue microdamage and/or propagating cracks within a uniformly stressed volume of human cortical bone using micro-CT with a BaSO4 contrast agent.