Ex vivo vibro-acoustography characterization of osteoporosis in an experimental mice model

Osteoporosis is a highly prevalent multifactorial osteometabolic disease, classically diagnosed, , by dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA). This study evaluated osteoporosis, , using vibro-acoustography (VA), an elastographic technique based on ultrasound radiation force. Three groups of mice femurs were used: (I) control group (CG), (II) osteoporosis group (OG) and (III) treated osteoporosis group (TOG), in which the animals received pamidronate, an antiresorptive drug. Evaluation was performed in an acoustic tank, using two high frequency focused beams produced by a confocal ultrasonic transducer. A hydrophone registered the low frequency acoustic response (AR) of bone samples. We used micro-computed tomography (microCT) as the reference standard and evaluated the correlation between VA and microCT parameters. The spectral analyses of the ARs with estimated area under the curve (AUC) values (mean; st. dev.) were, respectively, 1.29e and 9.32e for the CG, 3.25e and 2.16e for the OG, and 1.50e and 8.37e for the TOG. VA differentiated the experimental groups (P