All CT image data were imported to a PC workstation, and identification of the vertebral body from the 12th thoracic to the 7th lumbar spine was performed in each animal under a constant window (window width, 1000; window level, 200). As shown in
Fig. 1, elliptical and manual traces of the region of interest (ROI), which consisted exclusively of the trabecular and cortical bones of the vertebral body, respectively, were drawn using the eFilm viewing software (eFilm Workstation ver. 3.0.1; Merge, USA) and the
OsiriX-DICOM viewer (OsiriX 64-bit extension; Pixmeo, Switzerland). For each ROI, the mean Hounsfield units (HU) values were calculated and recorded. To evaluate inter-observer variations, measurement of the ROI values was repeated by three radiologists. To convert the HU values to BMDs, a bone mineral reference CIRS phantom (Computerized Imaging Reference System, USA) was scanned using the same parameters applied when performing scans of the dogs (panel A in
Fig. 2). The phantoms contained calibration objects with equivalent densities of 50, 100, and 150 mg/cm
3 calcium hydroxyapatite. The mean HU values were converted to BMD (mg/cm
3) using a phantom-derived linear regression equation (panel B in
Fig. 2) as previously described [5 (
link)7 (
link)].
Lee D., Lee Y., Choi W., Chang J., Kang J.H., Na K.J, & Chang D.W. (2015). Quantitative CT assessment of bone mineral density in dogs with hyperadrenocorticism. Journal of Veterinary Science, 16(4), 531-542.