Bone Abstracts

New treatment agents against osteoporosis may not only lead to an improved trabecular structure, but can probably also strengthen the cortex. To assess this treatment effects by means of QCT, one has to deal with significant partial volume effects observing this very thin, but compact structure. A new method for cortical thickness estimation has been developed using an analytical deconvolution approach. After estimating the point-spread-function (PSF) of a scanner/kernel combi...

Although the fracture risk reduction under bisphosphonate treatment in osteoporosis is clinically well established, it remains understudied why the efficacy of bisphosphonate therapy is higher for the prevention of vertebral fractures compared to other fractures.Our aim was to investigate whether anti-resorptive therapy with alendronate would result in different regional variations of structural indices in the vertebral body. We investigated the microstr...

Bone mineral density (BMD) as measured by quantitative computed tomography (QCT) is biased by the variable marrow composition since marrow fat reduces the apparent BMD. We developed a marrow densitometry (MD) method that identifies subvolumes in the vertebrae that consist of bone marrow only (bone voids) and determines their average mineral equivalent density values. The method was developed for use with in vivo high resolution QCT (HR-QCT). HR-QCT still has limited s...

Introduction: QCT of the spine is typically restricted to the BMD analysis of the lumbar vertebrae. However, fractures frequently occur in the thoracolumbar region. Also the load distribution in the spine may depend on the intervertebral disc space (IDS), a good approximation of the intervertebral disc, which itself cannot be reliably assessed by X-ray based methods.Materials and methods: A QCT 3D acquisition and automated analysis technique (with option...

Bone remodeling is the key process in bone structural reorganization, and its alterations lead to changes in bone mechanical strength. Since osteons reflect different bone remodeling patterns, we hypothesize that the femoral cortex of females with miscellaneous age, disease, and treatment conditions will display distinct osteonal morphology and osteocyte lacunar numbers along with different mechanical properties.The specimens used in this study were coll...

Abstract unavailable....

see PP150....

Protein kinases are an important class of regulatory elements and pharmacological targets for treatment of a number of diseases including cancer, heart and lung diseases. However, their role in regulation of the skeletal (mesenchymal) stem cell (MSC) functions and bone formation is not fully understood. Thus, we performed functional screening of human kinome, using three siRNAs for each of the ~700 known kinases represented in the human genome. Activity of alkaline phosphatase...

Presenting problem: Severe forms of juvenile Paget’s Syndrome (JPD) result in extreme bone turnover, necessitating long-term treatment with anti-resorptive drugs to control for bone pain and modeling of bones.Objective: To report clinical and biochemical effects of intravenous treatment with Pamidronate in two children with severe forms of JPD over a time period of 3 and 9 years, respectively. Treatment was commenced at 12 months and 3 years of age,...

Objectives: Vitamin D deficiency is of current interest especially in high risk patients for reduced bone mineral density as in pediatric hematologic oncologic patients.Methods: During a 4 year period 194 pediatric hematologic oncologic patients were screened for serological vitamin D deficiency (defined as 25 (OH)D levels <30 ng/ml and accordingly <75 nmol/l). 61 patients were in the prospective group 1 defined as screening at time of diagnosis,...