Fused micro-computed tomography (μCT) and histological images of bone specimens

Objectives: To describe a stepwise process to obtain fused images from micro-computed tomography (μCT) and histological images of bone specimens.

Material and methods: Four surgically resected human femoral heads from four patients who had total hip replacement were imaged at a spatial resolution of 12-microns by using μCT. Histological sections of four focal bone lesions including bone cyst in osteoarthritis (n=2) and subchondral bone plate fracture in osteonecrosis (n=2) were prepared and digitized. μCT images were reformatted and adjusted to match the histological images using a landmark-based visual co-registration. Fused μCT and histological images were displayed in a cine-loop video mode with a gradual transition from one image to the other.

Results: μCT images of the four focal bone lesions could be successfully fused with the corresponding histological images with a near perfect match of the bone trabeculae.

Conclusion: We present a stepwise process to obtain fused images from histological and reformatted μCT images of human femoral heads.