NONDESTRUCTIVE ELEMENTAL ANALYSIS OF VERTEBRAL BODY TRABECULAR BONE USING MUONIC X-RAYS

Non-destructive elemental analysis with muonic X-rays was performed on human vertebral bone and lumbar torso phantoms. It can provide quanti tative information on all elements in small deep-seated localized volu mes. The experiment was carried out using the superconducting muon cha nnel at TRIUMF in Vancouver, Canada and a lithium drifted germanium de tector with an active area of 18.5 cm(2). The muon channel produced ba ckward-decayed negative muons with wide kinetic energy range from 0.5 to 54.2 MeV. The muon beam was collimated to a diameter of 18 mm. The number of incoming muons was about 4 x 10(6) similar to 5 x 10(7) per data point. In the measurements with human vertebral bones fixed with neutralized formaldehyde, the correlation coefficient between calcium content measured by muons and by atomic absorption analysis was 0.99 a nd the level of significance was 0.0003. In the measurements with lumb ar torso phantoms, the correlation coefficient between calcium content measured by muons and by atomic absorption analysis was 0.99 and the level of significance was 0.02. The results suggest that elemental ana lysis in vertebral body trabecular bone using muonic X-rays closely co rrelates with measurements by atomic absorption analysis.