Software system for computing material and structural properties of bone and muscle in the lower extremity from pQCT

Peripheral Quantitative Computed Tomography (pQCT) is a non-invasive imaging technology that is well-suited for quantification of bone structural and material properties. Because of its increasing use and applicability, the development of automated quantification methods for pQCT images is an appealing field of research. In this paper we introduce a software system for hard and soft tissue quantification in the lower leg using pQCT imaging data. The main stages of our approach are the segmentation and identification of bone, muscle and fat, and the computation of densitometric and geometric variables of each regional tissue type. Our system was validated against reference area and densitometric measurements over a set of test images and produced encouraging results.