A longitudinal low dose [mu]CT analysis of bone healing in mice: a pilot study

Low dose microcomputed tomography ([mu]CT) is a recently matured technique that enables the study of longitudinal bone healing and the testing of experimental treatments for bone repair. This imaging technique has been used for studying craniofacial repair in mice but not in an orthopedic context. T...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Advances in orthopedics 2014-01
Main Authors: Di, Lu-Zhao, Couture, Vanessa, Leblanc, Elisabeth, Alinejad, Yasaman, Beaudoin, Jean-Francois, Lecomte, Roger, Berthod, Francois, Faucheux, Nathalie, Balg, Frederic, Grenier, Guillaume
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bones
CT imaging
Healing
Health aspects
Medical research
Medicine, Experimental
Methods
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Summary:Low dose microcomputed tomography ([mu]CT) is a recently matured technique that enables the study of longitudinal bone healing and the testing of experimental treatments for bone repair. This imaging technique has been used for studying craniofacial repair in mice but not in an orthopedic context. This is mainly due to the size of the defects (approximately 1.0 mm) in long bone, which heal rapidly and may thus negatively impact the assessment of the effectiveness of experimental treatments. We developed a longitudinal low dose [mu]CT scan analysis method combined with a new image segmentation and extraction software using Hounsfield unit (HU) scores to quantitatively monitor bone healing in small femoral cortical defects in live mice. We were able to reproducibly quantify bone healing longitudinally over time with three observers. We used high speed intramedullary reaming to prolong healing in order to circumvent the rapid healing typical of small defects. Bone healing prolongation combined with [mu]CT imaging to study small bone defects in live mice thus shows potential as a promising tool for future preclinical research on bone healing.
ISSN:2090-3472
DOI:10.1155/2014/791539