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Bone biomechanics: early insights from iliac bone histomorphometry
DOI:10.1038/bonekey.2014.78
In this brief hindsight, Professor Michael Parfitt reviews how his application of a novel methodology to iliac bone histomorphometry in 1983 was integral to the discovery that bone strength and bone fragility are intimately associated with bone microarchitecture.
Parfitt developed a method of using an eyepiece graticule calibrated with a stage micrometer to determine the absolute values of thickness, surface and separation within a bone sample obtained from the iliac crest. The model of bone structure at that time envisaged cancellous bone as having a series of parallel plates.
He showed that patients who had suffered a vertebral facture had 30% fewer parallel plates than expected whereas those with a hip fracture had thinner plates than expected. Parfitt also demonstrated that plate number was higher in premenopausal women compared to postmenopausal women and suggested that one of the first effects of menopause was perforation of the trabecular plates, due to increased bone resorption by osteoclasts.
This novel research fuelled investigations into the three-dimensional architecture of bone, its relationship to bone quality and its impact on fracture risk as well as into the molecular basis of osteoporosis.
Editor’s comment: Professor Parfitt’s initial biomechanical interpretation of microstructural indices led to our current definition of bone quality and paved the way to the more recent work emphasizing the morphological consequences of biological factors such as osteoclast life span and osteocyte apoptosis in the bone remodeling process.
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