The effect of cortical bone porosity on ultrasonic backscattering parameters

Bone is a medium with a complex microstructure, consisting of a nonhomogeneous and anisotropic porous network. The numerical study of the ultrasound scattering by cancellous and cortical bone has attracted the interest of several research groups worldwide. In this work, we employed the boundary element method to perform numerical simulations of ultrasonic wave propagation in two-dimensional computational models of cortical bone. A plane wave of frequency 1 MHz was used to simulate ultrasound scattering due to the microstructure and porous nature of cortical bone. The magnitude of the radial scattering amplitude and the displacement at a distance of 20 mm above cortical cortex were calculated to investigate changes in cortical porosity and the occurrence of non-refilled resorption lacunae (RL). It was shown that the scattering amplitudes as well as the calculated displacements can reveal differences due to changes in cortical porosity from 0-16% as well as the occurrence of pores larger than the Haversian canals.