More than 2.3 million Canadians are affected by osteoporosis, resulting in billions of dollars in economic burden and incalculable suffering.
A research team from the College of Medicine at the University of Saskatchewan has developed a new approach to imaging that detects changes in bone tissue far more quickly than bone densitometry scans, the method currently used in health care. While the study was done using a rabbit model, the results could lead to improved drug treatment in humans with osteoporosis.
Using the BMIT beamline of the Canadian Light Source at the University of Saskatchewan, Dr. David Cooper and colleagues were able to see the incredibly tiny pores inside cortical bone, the dense outer surface of bone that accounts for the majority of bone mass. These pores change over time, showing how bone tissue is continuously removed and replaced.
The researchers stimulated this bone turnover using parathyroid hormone, then tracked the changes in the pores of the cortical bone in as little as 14 days.
Read more on the CLS website
Image: Longitudinal erosion rate (LER) assessment based on synchrotron radiation (SR) micro-CT and micro-CT co-registered scans