EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES OF THE VISUALIZATION OF SPONGIOUS BONE BY HIGH-RESOLUTION COMPUTED-TOMOGRAPHY

Aim: To show the accuracy and the lower limit of visualisation of canc ellous bone in high-resolution computed tomography (HR-CT). Methods: 1 8 native human lumbar vertebrae were placed in a water phantom and exa mined by HR-CT. The scans were compared with contact radiographs of co rrelating thin bone sections by morphologic criteria. Results and conc lusion: The measured lower limit of visualisation of cancellous bone s tructures is clearly worse than expected from the measurements of spat ial resolution with standard phantoms used for HR-CT (0.6 versus 0.4 m m). True and exact imaging of normal cancellous bone cannot be achieve d even by modern HR-CT. Noise creates structures mimicking cancellous bone.