3 dimensional CT analyses of bone formation in porous ceramic biomaterials

Bone formation on porous biomaterials implanted into living tissue has been studied quantitatively by 3-D X-ray CT. Porous apatite-wollastonite-containing glass ceramics (A-W GC) have been implanted into the thighbones of rabbits, and a few weeks after, the implantation removed from the rabbits and imaged with a 3-D X-ray CT. The 3-D structures of the materials are reconstructed from hundreds of 2-D sectional CT images obtained 100 slices at a time. The complicated 3-D structure of the A-W GC was imaged and analyzed at high resolution (4mum voxel size),. At lower resolution (14 mum voxel size), the whole volume of the implanted A-W GC specimen (6 mm dia. and 4 mm length) was imaged using volume CT. The regions where bone formed could be distinguished from the A-W GC and their volumes.