Muscle-Based Pharmacokinetic Modeling of Marrow Perfusion for Osteoporotic Bone in Females

The pharmacokinetic model has been widely used in tissue perfusion analysis, such as bone marrow perfusion. In the modeling process, the arterial input function is important to guarantee the reliability of the fitting result. However, the arterial input function is variable and hard to control, which makes it difficult to compare results across different studies. The purpose of this study was to establish a muscle-based pharmacokinetic model for bone marrow perfusion without using arterial input function. Erector spinae muscle around the vertebral body was selected as the reference region. The study was carried out in elderly females with different bone mineral densities (normal, osteopenia, and osteoporosis). Quantitative parameters were extracted from the pharmacokinetic model. Parameter K (trans,BM) (contrast agent extravasation rate constants for blood perfusion of the bone marrow) showed a significant reduction in subjects with lower bone mineral density, which is consistent with previous studies. However, muscle perfusion parameters remained unchanged among different groups. The results indicated that the muscle-based model was stable for bone marrow perfusion modeling. Additionally, nonsignificant change in muscle parameters indicated that the diminished perfusion is only a local rather than a systematic change in the bone marrow for osteoporosis.