In-silico evaluation of cortical porosity by tangential axial transmission

The role of quantitative ultrasound as a diagnostic and monitoring tool in bone pathologies has been widely investigated both experimentally and numerically. Recently, the numerical studies have focused on the exploitation of high-resolution imaging data of bone´s microarchitecture in order to develop more realistic computational models of osteoporotic bones. In this work, we present numerical simulations of ultrasonic wave propagation in two-dimensional computational models of cortical bone to investigate the effect of cortical porosity and the occurrence of non-refilled basic multicellular unit (BMU) on the propagation of the first arriving signal (FAS) velocity. Calculations are conducted in the tangential direction and the central excitation frequencies of 0.5 and 1 MHz are used. It was shown that the FAS velocity can detect changes in cortical porosity and capture the occurrence of BMU, indicating a potential region for the future evolution of osteoporosis. Also, the examined frequencies were found to be sensitive to changes in the distribution of normal and large pores.