The objective of this study is to determine whether in vitro dielectric properties of human trabecular bones, can distinguish between osteoporotic and osteoarthritis patients' bone samples. Specifically this study enlightens intra-patient variation of trabecular bone microarchitecture and dielectric properties, inter-disease comparison of bone dielectric properties, and finally establishes the correlation to traditional bone histomorphometry parameter (bone volume fraction) for diseased bone tissue. Bone cores were obtained from osteoporotic and osteoarthritis patients (n = 12). These were scanned using microCT to examine bone volume fraction. An open-ended coaxial probe measurement technique was employed to measure dielectric properties over the 0.5 - 8.5 GHz frequency range. The dielectric properties of osteoarthritis patients are significantly higher than osteoporotic patients; with an increase of 41% and 45% for relative permittivity and conductivity respectively. The dielectric properties within each patient vary significantly, variation in relative permittivity and conductivity was found to be greater than 25% and 1.4% respectively. A weak correlation (r  =  0.5) is observed between relative permittivity and bone volume fraction. Osteoporotic and osteoarthritis bones can be differentiated based on difference of dielectric properties. Although these do not correlate strongly to bone volume fraction, it should be noted that bone volume fraction is a poor predictor of fracture risk. The dielectric properties of bones are found to be influenced by mineralization levels of bones. Therefore, dielectric properties of bones may have potential as a diagnostic measure of osteoporosis.

中文翻译：

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在微波频率下患病的小梁骨的介电特性。

这项研究的目的是确定人眼小梁骨头的体外介电特性是否可以区分骨质疏松症和骨关节炎患者的骨样。具体而言，该研究启发了患者的小梁骨微结构和介电特性的变化，并比较了介电特性的疾病间比较，并最终确定了与患病骨组织的传统骨组织形态学参数（骨体积分数）的相关性。从骨质疏松症和骨关节炎患者（n = 12）获得骨核。使用microCT扫描这些图像以检查骨体积分数。采用开放式同轴探针测量技术来测量0.5-8.5 GHz频率范围内的介电性能。骨关节炎患者的介电特性显着高于骨质疏松患者；相对介电常数和电导率分别增加41％和45％。每个患者体内的介电性能差异很大，相对介电常数和电导率的变化分别大于25％和1.4％。相对介电常数和骨体积分数之间存在弱相关性（r = 0.5）。骨质疏松和骨关节炎的骨骼可以根据介电特性的差异进行区分。尽管这些与骨体积分数没有很强的相关性，但应注意，骨体积分数对骨折风险的预测不佳。发现骨骼的介电性能受骨骼矿化程度的影响。因此，