Characterization of multi-biomarkers for bone health assessment based on photoacoustic physicochemical analysis method

Ting Feng; Yejing Xie; Weiya Xie; Yingna Chen; Peng Wang; Lan Li; Jing Han; Dean Ta; Liming Cheng; Qian Cheng

doi:10.1016/j.pacs.2021.100320

Characterization of multi-biomarkers for bone health assessment based on photoacoustic physicochemical analysis method

Photoacoustics. 2021 Dec 14:25:100320. doi: 10.1016/j.pacs.2021.100320. eCollection 2022 Mar.

Authors

Ting Feng¹, Yejing Xie¹, Weiya Xie², Yingna Chen², Peng Wang³, Lan Li³, Jing Han¹, Dean Ta⁴, Liming Cheng⁵, Qian Cheng^{2

5}

Affiliations

¹ School of Electronic and Optical Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing 210094, China.
² Institute of Acoustics, School of Physics Science and Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China.
³ Department of Sports Medicine and Adult Reconstructive Surgery, Drum Tower Hospital, School of Medicine, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210008, Jiangsu, China.
⁴ Department of Electronic Engineering, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China.
⁵ The Key Laboratory of Spine and Spinal Cord Injury Repair and Regeneration, Ministry of Education, Department of Orthopaedics, Tongji Hospital, Tongji University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200065, China.

Abstract

Photoacoustic (PA) techniques are potential alternatives to histopathology. The physicochemical spectrogram (PCS) generated by the PA measurement at multiple wavelengths can presents the morphology and chemical composition target at multi-biomarkers simultaneously. In this work, via multi-wavelength PA measurements performed on rabbit bone models, we investigated the feasibility of using PCSs for bone health assessment. A comprehensive analysis of the PCSs, termed PA physicochemical analysis (PAPCA), was conducted. The "slope" and "relative content" were used as the PAPCA-quantified parameters to characterize the changes in the physical and chemical properties of bone tissue, respectively. The findings are consistent well with the gold-standard imaging results. It demonstrated that the PAPCA can be used to characterize both the microstructure and content of multi-biomarkers which highly related with bone health. Considering the PA technique is noninvasive and radiation-free, it has great potential in the implementation and monitoring of bone diseases progression.

Keywords: Bone characterization; Chemical composition; Osteoporosis; PA physicochemical analysis; Photoacoustic; Physical microstructure; Physicochemical spectrogram.