engleski

A method for measuring area and surface-related parameters on microphotographs by using free and open-source image processing software

There are different ways of obtaining volume and surface-related parameters for describing the micromorphology of different tissues, including cancellous bone. Histomorphometry and micro computed tomography can be too costly for small laboratories and institutions, especially when proprietary software or expensive equipment is needed. Free and open-source software alternatives are available today. Some of these can be used for histomorphometry. Here we demonstrate how all image processing and morphometry can be done on freely available software. This method was inspired by the paper by Egan et al. (1), however, we further replaced all of the proprietary and expensive software by using free and open-source alternatives. For measurements of the cancellous bone, images were first processed using open-source and free imaging software GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) and measurements were performed by using FIJI software (FIJI is Just ImageJ), a distribution of ImageJ open-source image processing software (2, 3). The measured parameters were: bone area (B.Ar), trabecular tissue total area (T.Ar) and trabecular bone perimeter (B.Pm). Using several mathematical formulas, we calculated the following parameters describing cancellous bone histomorphometry: trabecular bone volume (BV/TV, in %), trabecular bone surface (BS/TV, in /mm), trabecular thickness (Tb.Th, in mm), trabecular number (Tb.N, in/mm) and trabecular separation (Tb.Sp, in mm). These parameters are important in studies of bone development and quality. There are many benefits of using freely available and open-source software for scientific research, especially the low cost, worldwide availability and transparency, and this work supports that notion.

histomorphometry ; microscopy ; software ; methods

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