Jun Chen1, Hugh
McGregor2, Ephraim I. Ben-Abraham1, Kevin J. Glaser1,
Qingshan Chen1, Richard L. Ehman1
1Mayo
Clinic, Rochester, MN, United States; 2University of North
Carolina, Chapel Hill. , Chapel Hill,
NC, United States
Fragility fractures are the hallmark of osteoporosis, which affects 1 in 2 women and 1 in 6 men older than 50 in North America. Decreased bone mineral density (BMD), measured by DEXA and other methods, is an important risk factor for patients with osteoporosis. However, bone strength depends on the combination of BMD and bone microstructure/architecture. Therefore, assessing overall bone biomechanical properties could be more valuable than determining BMD alone. In this study, we investigated the feasibility of using MRE to measure and detect the stiffness change in bone in an ex vivo model of osteoporosis.