[Bone quality]

Abstract

It is well-known that osteoporosis treatment should be discussed from the view point of bone quality, however, in vivo assessment of bone quality is limited only for bone geometry and trabecular microstructure. Hip structure analysis (HSA) is a program to evaluate geometry and biomechanical property using two-dimensional DXA data of proximal femur. In vivo assessment of trabecular microstructure has been realized by the benefit of recent developments of imaging technique and technology, such as high resolution clinical CT and MR. These imaging techniques are going to be applied to assess risk of fracture and efficacy of anti-osteoporotic agents, although their spatial resolution is lower than real trabecular structure.