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Abstract: Physical signals within the bone, i.e. generated from mechanical loading, have the potential to initiate skeletal adaptation. Strong evidence has pointed to bone fluid flow (BFF) as a media between an external load and the bone cells, in which altered velocity and pressure can ultimately initiate the mechanotransduction and the remodeling process within the bone. Load-induced BFF can be altered by factors such as intramedullary pressure (ImP) and/or bone matrix strain, mediating bone adaptation. Previous studies have shown that BFF induced by ImP alone, with minimum bone strain, can initiate bone remodeling. However, identifying induced ImP dynamics and bone strain factor in vivo using a non-invasive method still remains challenging. To apply ImP as a means for alteration of BFF, it was hypothesized that non-invasive dynamic hydraulic stimulation (DHS) can induce local ImP with minimal bone strain to potentially elicit osteogenic adaptive responses via bone–muscle coupling. The goal of this study was to evaluate the immediate effects on local and distant ImP and strain in response to a range of loading frequencies using DHS. Simultaneous femoral and tibial ImP and bone strain values were measured in three 15-month-old female Sprague Dawley rats during DHS loading on the tibia with frequencies of 1Hz to 10Hz. DHS showed noticeable effects on ImP induction in the stimulated tibia in a nonlinear fashion in response to DHS over the range of loading frequencies, where they peaked at 2Hz. DHS at various loading frequencies generated minimal bone strain in the tibiae. Maximal bone strain measured at all loading frequencies was less than 8με. No detectable induction of ImP or bone strain was observed in the femur. This study suggested that oscillatory DHS may regulate the local fluid dynamics with minimal mechanical strain in the bone, which serves critically in bone adaptation. These results clearly implied DHS's potential as an effective, non-invasive intervention for osteopenia and osteoporosis treatments. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Phase cancellation in ultrasound due to large receiver size has been proposed as a contributing factor to the inaccuracy of estimating broadband ultrasound attenuation (BUA), which is used to characterize bone quality. Transducers with aperture size ranging from 2 to 5 mm have been used in previous attempts to study the effect of phase cancellation. However, these receivers themselves are susceptible to phase cancellation because aperture size is close to one center wavelength (about 3 mm at 500 KHz in water). This study uses an ultra small receiver (aperture size: 0.2 mm) in conjunction with a newly developed two-dimensional (2-D) synthetic array system to investigate the effects of phase cancellation and receiver aperture size on BUA estimations of bone tissue. In vitro ultrasound measurements were conducted on 54 trabecular bone samples (harvested from sheep femurs) in a confocal configuration with a focused transmitter and synthesized focused receivers of different aperture sizes. Phase sensitive (PS) and phase insensitive (PI) detections were performed. The results show that phase cancellation does have a significant effect on BUA. The normalized BUA (nBUA) with PS is 8.1% higher than PI nBUA while PI BUA is well correlated with PS BUA. Receiver aperture size also influences the BUA reading for both PI and PS detection and smaller receiver aperture tends to result in higher BUA readings. The results also indicate that the receiver aperture size used in the confocal configuration with PI detection should at least equal the aperture of the transmitter to capture most of the energy redistributed by the interference and diffraction from the trabecular bone. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]