Abstract:
This paper reports on observations of the distribution of micro-structural features in a sample of cortical bone (mid-diaphysis femur from bovine). Such features include lacunae, Haversian canals, and canaliculi clusters and are considered, upon bone treatment, to be porosities. Initially, image segmentation was utilized to quantify feature geometric attributes such as area A (μm2), perimeter P(μm), elliptical ratio min-maj axis length, and compactness. A center point of the bone cross section was determined from which a polar coordinate system was constructed related to which was a grid containing 25 regions of roughly 500×500 μm in size. Distributions of these features were plotted vs. distal radius and vs. angular positions as measured from the center of the bone. Analyses of the linear trends reveals that all porosity attributes and for all feature types (Haversian canals, and canaliculi clusters) appear to decrease fairly linearly with increasing radius from bone center (pandlt; 0.05percent) as the outer perimeter is reached. Also, these features tend to become more round (pandlt; 0.05percent) as they get closer to the outer shell. In contrast, the geometric attributes appear to be indifferent vs. the angle.