Comparison of radiographic texture analysis from computed radiography and bone densitometry systems

Med Phys. 2004 Apr;31(4):882-91. doi: 10.1118/1.1650529.

Abstract

Osteoporosis is a disease that results in an increased risk of bone fracture due to a loss of bone mass and deterioration of bone structure. Bone mineral density (BMD) provides a measure of bone mass and is frequently measured by bone densitometry systems to diagnose osteoporosis. In addition, computerized radiographic texture analysis (RTA) is currently being investigated as a measure of bone structure and as an additional diagnostic predictor of osteoporosis. In this study, we assessed the ability of a peripheral bone densitometry (PD) system to yield images useful for RTA. The benefit of such a system is that it measures BMD by dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry and therefore provides high- and low-energy digital radiographic images. The bone densitometry system investigated was the GE/Lunar PIXI, which provides 512 x 512 digital images of the heel or forearm (0.2 mm pixels). We compared texture features of heel images obtained with this PD system to those obtained on a Fuji computed radiography (CR) system (0.1 mm pixels). Fourier and fractal-based texture features of images from 24 subjects who had both CR and BMD exams were calculated, and correlation between the two systems was analyzed. Fourier-based texture features characterize the magnitude, frequency content, and orientation of the trabecular bone pattern. Good correlation was found between the two modalities for the first moment (FMP) with r=0.71 (p value<0.0001) and for minimum FMP with r=0.52 (p value=0.008). Root-mean-square (RMS) did not correlate with r=0.31 (p value>0.05), while the standard deviation of the RMS did correlate with r=0.79 (p value<0.0001). Good correlation was also found between the two modalities for the fractal-based texture features with r=0.79 (p value<0.0001) for the global Minkowski dimension and r=0.63 (p value=0.0007) for the fractal dimension from a box counting method. The PD system therefore may have the potential for yielding heel images suitable for RTA.

Publication types

  • Clinical Trial
  • Comparative Study
  • Controlled Clinical Trial
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.
  • Validation Study

MeSH terms

  • Absorptiometry, Photon / instrumentation*
  • Absorptiometry, Photon / methods
  • Aged
  • Aged, 80 and over
  • Bone Density*
  • Calcaneus / diagnostic imaging
  • Equipment Failure Analysis
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Middle Aged
  • Osteoporosis / diagnosis*
  • Osteoporosis / diagnostic imaging*
  • Radiographic Image Enhancement / instrumentation*
  • Radiographic Image Enhancement / methods
  • Radiographic Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / instrumentation*
  • Radiographic Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / methods
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Sensitivity and Specificity
  • Tomography, X-Ray Computed / instrumentation*
  • Tomography, X-Ray Computed / methods