The Characteristics of Regional Bone Quality in the Cervical Vertebrae Considering BMD

Data of CT images and the femoral neck BMD were obtained from 99 patients who underwent the cervical CT and BMD simultaneously (the gap of both studies was within 6 months) from April 2009 to December 2014. There were 52 females and 47 males. The mean age was 63.7 year (female: 63.4 years, male: 64.1; range 32-86 years). The patient was excluded who had any destructive pathology or severe spondylosis in the cervical pedicle and the cervical lateral mass. Patients were divided into three groups according to femoral neck BMD (Group A, T-score ≥-1; Group B, -2.5\<T-score\<-1.0; Group C, T-score≤-2.5). Group A had normal BMD patients, Group B had lower normal patients including osteopenic patients and Group C presented osteoporotic patients. The mean HU numbers of cortical bone area in the vertebral canal (cHU, the medial wall of the lateral mass), the posterior wall of transverse foramen (fHU), the medial (mHU), lateral wall (lHU) and trabecular area of pedicle (pHU) were measured on the axial CT images in clinical images.