Electron absorbed fractions in skeletal soft tissues based on red bone marrow segmentation at runtime in μCT images of human trabecular bone

Abstract

Skeletal dosimetry determines equivalent dose or absorbed fractions in the red bone marrow (RBM) and the osteogenic cells on bone surfaces (BSC). Following a method used earlier for the BSC, RBM and yellow bone marrow (YBM) have been segmented in the marrow cavities of μCT images of human spongiosa at runtime, i.e. during the execution of the Monte Carlo calculation, which avoids the necessity to segment RBM and YBM externally in μCT images for many different cellularities and to store the data. Using this internal RBM/YBM segmentation, this study presents electron absorbed fractions for the RBM and the BSC as a function of the voxel resolution and also compares the results with data from other investigations. © 2009 Springer-Verlag.