The heterogeneity in femoral neck structure and strength

Abstract

Most measures of femoral neck strength derived using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry or computed tomography (CT) assume the femoral neck is a cylinder with a single cortical thickness. We hypothesized that these simplifications introduce errors in estimating strength and that detailed analyses will identify new parameters that more accurately predict femoral neck strength. High-resolution CT data were used to evaluate 457 cross-sectional slices along the femoral neck of 12 postmortem specimens. Cortical morphology was measured in each cross-section. The distribution of cortical thicknesses was evaluated to determine whether the mean or median better estimated central tendency. Finite-elemen..