Abstract
PurposeThis study aimed to evaluate the age- and sex-related characteristics in cortical thickness of the tibial diaphysis between non-obese healthy young and elderly subjects as reference data.MethodsThe study investigated 31 young subjects (12 men and 19 women; mean age, 25 ± 8 years) and 54 elderly subjects (29 men and 25 women; mean age, 70 ± 6 years). Three-dimensional estimated cortical thickness of the tibial diaphysis was automatically calculated for 5000–9000 measurement points using the high-resolution cortical thickness measurement from clinical computed tomography data. In 12 assessment regions created by combining three heights (proximal, central, and distal diaphysis) and four areas of the axial plane at 90° (medial, anterior, lateral, and posterior areas) in the tibial coordinate system, the standardized thickness was assessed using the tibial length.ResultsAs structural characteristics, there were no differences in the medial and lateral thicknesses, while the anterior thickness was greater than the posterior thickness in all groups. The sex-related difference was not shown. As an age-related difference, elderly subjects showed greater or lesser cortical thickness than the young subjects, depending on the regions of the tibia.ConclusionsCortical thickness was different depending on sex, age, and regions in the tibia. The results of this study are of clinical relevance as reference points to clarify the causes of various pathological conditions for diseases.Level of evidenceLevel 3.
Highlights
Three-dimensional cortical bone thickness varies depending on the regions of the bone [1] and is the optimal parameter to evaluate structural adaptation by biological factors and mechanical use [2]
This study aimed to identify the age- and sex-related characteristics of three-dimensional cortical thickness of the tibial diaphysis in healthy non-obese young and elderly individuals, using high-resolution cortical thickness measurement from clinical computed tomography (CT) data
In terms of sex-related differences (Table 4), all 12 regions showed no statistically significant differences, whereas elderly women possessed the trend of greater cortical thickness than elderly men in the medial and lateral areas of all heights
Summary
Three-dimensional cortical bone thickness varies depending on the regions of the bone [1] and is the optimal parameter to evaluate structural adaptation by biological factors and mechanical use [2]. A bone’s resistance is dependent on the sex- and age-related characteristics of cortical thickness [3, 4], which is useful in determining the causes of various pathological conditions, such as knee osteoarthritis (OA) [5,6,7,8,9,10,11]. The epidemiological study has the advantage of clarifying the sequence of changes and causes of initiation and progression. This cohort demonstrated that tibial cortical thickness is one of the key factors in clarifying the etiology of knee OA [5]. Treece et al [23, 24] reported highly accurate measurements by which cortical thickness can be accurately estimated from the clinical low-resolution CT data, using the mathematical model of the anatomy and imaging system Treece et al [23, 24] reported highly accurate measurements by which cortical thickness can be accurately estimated from the clinical low-resolution CT data, using the mathematical model of the anatomy and imaging system (Figs. 1 and 2) [23, 24]
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