Abstract
Recent studies suggest that bone marrow adipose tissue (BMAT) might play a role in the pathogenesis of osteoporosis. Previous research using regional magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) methods to measure BMAT reported inconsistent findings on the relationship between BMAT and Dual-Energy Absorptiometry (DXA) -measured bone mineral density (BMD). In the present study we evaluated 52 healthy women (age 18–88 yrs, mean±SD, 48.4 ± 17.7 yrs; BMI, 24.5 ± 4.6 kg/m2) with T1-weighted whole-body MRI-measured total body adipose tissue (TBAT) and pelvic BMAT using conventional image segmentation methods (sliceOmatic 4.2, Tomovision Inc., Montreal). Total body and regional BMD was measured by whole body DXA (GE Lunar DPX, software version 4.7). A high correlation was observed between pelvic BMAT and BMD (total body BMD r = −0.723, p < 0.001; pelvic BMD r = −0.627, p < 0.001). The association between BMAT and BMD remained strong even after adjusting for age, BMI, and TBAT (total body BMD r =-0.498, p < 0.001; pelvic BMD r= −0.449, p < 0.001). Pelvic BMAT was also highly correlated with age (r = 0.723, p < 0.001) but not with TBAT (r = −0.206, p = 0.15). Conclusions: MRI-measured BMAT is strongly correlated with DXA-measured BMD; and additional studies are needed to establish the extent to which these observations represent biological relations or DXA measurement artifacts.
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