Bone cortical thickness and porosity assessment using guided waves-based axial transmission technique

Key factors of fracture risk, such as cortical bone thinning and porosity increase, are imperfectly captured with currently available X-ray densitometry techniques. A presentation at this symposium (IUS2015) evidenced the feasibility of analyzing the waveguide response of ex vivo long bones using axial transmission (AT), but has shown mixed results for porosity estimates, caused by non-unicity of the inverse problem solution. Our goal was to extend our previous study, first by increasing significantly the number of specimens investigated and second by incorporating some prior knowledge on the cortical thickness in the inverse problem.