Assessing the biomechanical strength of trabecular bone in vitro using 3D anisotropic non-linear texture measures: The scaling vector method

We introduce the scaling vector method (SVM): a technique to obtain local non-linear structural information from data sets suitable in cases where anisotropy plays an important role. We apply the SVM to High Resolution Magnetic Resonance Images (HRMRI) of human proximal femur specimens IN VITRO which contain a large portion of bone tissue forming a complex network of mineralized trabeculae oriented along the major stress lines. By means of the SVM, we extract a 3D non-linear local anisotropic texture measure which we use to compare with similar Isotropic texture measures, bone mineral density (BMD) and standard isotropic ID (linear) morphometric parameters in the prediction of the biomechanical properties of the trabecular bone. Our results show that structural non-linear anisotropic texture measures which account for the preferential direction of the trabeculae are superior to isotropic and bulk measures in the prediction of the mechanical properties of the human proximal femur in vitro.