Scanning acoustic microscopy study of human cortical and trabecular bone.

Scanning acoustic microscopy (SAM) has been used in the burst mode to study the properties of human cortical and trabecular bone. An Olympus UH3 SAM (Olympus Co., Tokyo, Japan) was used with a 400 MHz burst mode lens (120 degrees aperture, nominal lateral resolution 2.5 microm). The human cortical bone was from the midshaft of a femur from a 60+ male cadaver; the trabecular bone specimens were obtained from the distal femoral condyles of another 60+ human male cadaver. Elastic moduli for both trabecular and cortical bone were obtained by means of a series of calibration curves correlating SAM gray levels of known materials with their elastic moduli; specimens included: polypropylene, PMMA, Teflon, aluminum, Pyrex glass, titanium, and stainless steel. Values obtained by this method are in good agreement with those obtained by nanoindentation techniques. The three critical findings earlier by Katz and Meunier were observed here as well in both the cortical and trabecular bone samples.