Texture analysis in quantitative osteoporosis assessment: Characterizing microarchitecture

The microarchitecture of the trabecular bone is an highly informative feature for osteoporosis assessment. High resolution peripheral quantitative computed tomography permits its in-vivo observation at a resolution of 82 µm. In this paper we propose an approach that assesses bone microarchitecture based on texture features extracted from the trabecular bone. The method is based on three-dimensional texture features as local descriptors of the structure in the trabecular bone. A clustering in the feature space indicates characteristic classes of microarchitecture that are repeatedly detected across subjects. The distribution of those classes allows for a differentiation between osteoporotic and healthy subjects. We report initial results for the repeatability of the method and its performance for the differentiation of healthy and osteoporotic subjects.