title: Distribution and variability study of the femur cortical thickness from computer tomography.
abstract: In the context of patient-specific 3D bone reconstruction, enhancing the surface with cortical thickness (COT) opens a large field of applications for research and medicine. This functionality calls for database analysis for better knowledge of COT. Our study provides a new approach to reconstruct 3D internal and external cortical surfaces from computer tomography (CT) scans and analyses COT distribution and variability on a set of asymptomatic femurs. The reconstruction method relies on a short (∼5 min) initialisation phase based on 3D reconstruction from biplanar CT-based virtual X-rays and an automatic optimisation phase based on intensity-based cortical structure detection in the CT volume, the COT being the distance between internal and external cortical surfaces. Surfaces and COT show root mean square reconstruction errors below 1 and 1.3 mm. Descriptions of the COT distributions by anatomical regions are provided and principal component analysis has been applied. The first mode, 16-50% of the variance, corresponds to the variation of the mean COT around its averaged shape; the second mode, 9-28%, corresponds to a fine variation of its shape. A femur COT model can, therefore, be described as the averaged COT distribution in which the first parameter adjusts its mean value and a second parameter adjusts its shape.
authors.affiliation: a Arts et Métiers ParisTech, Laboratoire de Biomécanique , 151 bd de l'Hôpital, 75013 Paris , France.
authors.forename: Antoine
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Serrurier
authors.forename: Erwan
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Jolivet
authors.forename: Sergio
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Quijano
authors.forename: Patricia
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Thoreux
authors.forename: Wafa
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Skalli
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D005260:Female; D005269:Femur / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D006801:Humans; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D025341:Principal Component Analysis; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed / Q000379:methods*