Mapping of bone mineral density "in vivo" study of human femoral head using computed tomography

Summary. We describe a new method to obtain an accurate mapping of the bone mineral density which can be applied to any area of the human skeleton in a live subject using conventional CT scan imaging. The method involves direct measurement of grey colour intensity from the CT image. The colour intesity mantains a direct relationship with the Hounsfield Units, therefore the optic density of a given area is related to the bone density. In our study this method has been applied to the human femoral head to obtain a three-dimensional topography of the bone density.