# ANALYSIS OF MINERAL AND FAT CONTENT BY QUANTITATIVE CT

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON · 1990 · $90,693

## Abstract

Metabolic disorders often cause changes in the mineral content of
the skeleton or the fat content of the bone marrow, or both.  Non-
invasive x-ray techniques have been developed for analyzing the
mineral content of the skeleton and are frequently employed in
the diagnosis of diseases such as osteoporosis.  A technique which
could in addition analyze fat content could improve the quality of
the diagnosis and have wider application.  Recently, we reported
the development of two quantitative CT (QCT) methods that
analyze both bone mineral and fat content.  The present study is
designed to further develop and apply these methods.

Three major investigations are proposed.  First, experiments will
be performed to optimize the QCT methods with respect to
accuracy, precision and x-ray dose.  These experiments will be
facilitated by using anthropomorphic lumbar sectional phantoms
with plastic inserts that mimic vertebrae.

Next, the accuracy of the techniques will be tested in excised
vertebrae from human cadavers.  The mineral estimates will be
compared with those of other CT and photon absorptiometry
techniques.  The fat estimates will be compared with those of two
nuclear magnetic resonance techniques.  The actual mineral
content of the vertebral sections will be determined by ashing and
the fat content by fat extraction.

Finally, the methods will be applied in selected human subject
studies.  Among these will be investigations of:  the short-term
reproducibility of the methods, the in vivo/in vitro accuracy of
the methods when applied to the femoral head in hip replacement
patients, and the correlation of the methods with others in
evaluating normals and osteoporotics.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 3159199
- **Project number:** 5R01AR039215-03
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
- **SAM.gov UEI:** HD1WMN6945W6
- **Principal Investigator:** MITCHELL M GOODSITT
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 1990
- **Award amount:** $90,693
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 1988-09-01 → 1992-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/3159199

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 3159199, ANALYSIS OF MINERAL AND FAT CONTENT BY QUANTITATIVE CT (5R01AR039215-03). Retrieved via MORVS 2026-10-25 from https://api.morvs.ai/grant/nih/3159199. Licensed CC0.

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