Dual-energy CT hybridation and kernel processing effects on the estimation of bone mineral mass and density: a calcination study on ex vivo human femur

Recent technological advances with dual-energy quantitative computed tomography (DEQCT) allow to combine two images of different level of energy to obtain simulated mono-energetic images at 60keV (SIM60KeV-QCT) with improved image contrast in clinical practice. This study includes three topics: (1) compare bone mineral content (BMC), areal and volumetric bone mineral density (aBMD, vBMD) obtained with SIM60KeV-QCT, single-energy QCT (SEQCT), and dual X-ray absorptiometry (DXA); (2) compare ash density and weight with respective vBMD and BMC assessed on SIM60KeV-QCT, SEQCT, and DXA; and (3) compare the influence of reconstruction kernels on the accuracy of vBMD and BMC using ash density and ash weight as the reference values