Feasibility of micro-crack detection in human trabecular bone images from 3D synchrotron microtomography.
Bone micro-cracks receive an increasing attention to explain bone quality. They have mainly been observed in 2D with microscopic techniques. In this paper, we propose a method based on 3D Synchrotron Radiation micro-CT to analyze micro-cracks in human trabecular bone samples. Samples were imaged with a voxel size of 1.4 microm. Despite micro-cracks are visible, their automatic detection is challenging because of noise, artifacts, low-contrast, and partial volume effect. We propose a two-steps procedure, based on image enhancement and segmentation to address this problem. The method enables to get the 3D morphology of micro-cracks, shown for the first time with this precision. Future work will be devoted to extract quantitative parameters on the crack morphology.
Larrue
Aymeric
A
CREATIS-LRMN Research Unit, UMR CNRS 5220, INSERM U630, INSA Lyon, France.
Rattner
Aline
A
Laroche
Norbert
N
Vico
Laurence
L
Peyrin
Françoise
F
D005264:Femoral Fractures / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D005270:Femur Head / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D006801:Humans; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional / Q000379:methods*; D011856:Radiographic Image Enhancement / Q000379:methods*; D017356:Synchrotrons; D014054:Tomography / Q000379:methods*