Cortical thickness mapping to identify focal osteoporosis in patients with hip fracture.

BACKGROUND: Individuals with osteoporosis are predisposed to hip fracture during trips, stumbles or falls, but half of all hip fractures occur in those without generalised osteoporosis. By analysing ordinary clinical CT scans using a novel cortical thickness mapping technique, we discovered patches of markedly thinner bone at fracture-prone regions in the femurs of women with acute hip fracture compared with controls. METHODS: We analysed CT scans from 75 female volunteers with acute fracture and 75 age- and sex-matched controls. We classified the fracture location as femoral neck or trochanteric before creating bone thickness maps of the outer 'cortical' shell of the intact contra-lateral hip. After registration of each bone to an average femur shape and statistical parametric mapping, we were able to visualise and quantify statistically significant foci of thinner cortical bone associated with each fracture type, assuming good symmetry of bone structure between the intact and fractured hip. The technique allowed us to pinpoint systematic differences and display the results on a 3D average femur shape model. FINDINGS: The cortex was generally thinner in femoral neck fracture cases than controls. More striking were several discrete patches of statistically significant thinner bone of up to 30%, which coincided with common sites of fracture initiation (femoral neck or trochanteric). INTERPRETATION: Femoral neck fracture patients had a thumbnail-sized patch of focal osteoporosis at the upper head-neck junction. This region coincided with a weak part of the femur, prone to both spontaneous 'tensile' fractures of the femoral neck, and as a site of crack initiation when falling sideways. Current hip fracture prevention strategies are based on case finding: they involve clinical risk factor estimation to determine the need for single-plane bone density measurement within a standard region of interest (ROI) of the femoral neck. The precise sites of focal osteoporosis that we have identified are overlooked by current 2D bone densitometry methods.

面向信息系统工程监理的软件工具IT-PM

在信息系统工程开发中引入监理机制已经成为业界的共识。监理组织以独立“第三方”身份加入项目,通过“控制、管理、协调”的手段,达到提高项目质量的目的。分析了信息系统工程监理自动化支持的研究现状,提出了面向信息系统工程监理的软件工具IT-PM。工具以信息系统工程监理的过程模型为基础,支持监理工作的流程和信息管理自动化。

Electro-Optical Effect Measurement of Thin-Film Material Using PM Fiber Mach-Zehnder Interferometer

A polarization-maintaining (PM) fiber Mach-Zehnder (MZ) interferometer has been established to measure the EO effect of very thin film materials with optical anisotropy. Unlike a common MZ interferometer,all the components are connected via polarization-maintaining fibers. At the same time, a polarized DFB laser with a maximum power output of 10mW is adopted as the light source to induce a large extinction ratio. Here, we take it to determine the electro-optical coefficients of a very thin superlattice structure with GaAs, KTP, and GaN as comparative samples. The measured EO coefficients show good comparability with the others.

MBE生长的PM-HEMT结构中深电子陷阱及其钝化/消除

于2010-11-23批量导入