Our results suggest that it was possible to detect signals representing the effect of TPTD on cortical bone turnover using SWIFT. The SWIFT-SNR was markedly increased early after the initiation of TPTD treatment, similar to the change in the bone formation rate in bone histomorphometry. We believe that TPTD promotes bone formation in the cortical bone to a greater extent in the early stage after the initiation of TPTD treatment, and SWIFT detects the signals emitted by the newly formed bone area. This change could not be detected using PDWI, a conventional MRI technique. The effects of TPTD on cortical bone could be detected using DEXA and µCT; on the other hand, the specific changes early after the initiation of TPTD treatment could not be determined. The use of SWIFT enables the evaluation of the effect of TPTD on cortical bone turnover in a site- and time-specific manner.
DEXA, which measures BMD, is the most commonly performed test for the treatment of osteoporosis [16]. The measurement results in this study were higher in the TPTD group than in the non-TPTD group, as in previous reports [17], confirming the appropriate administration of TPTD. DEXA is a two-dimensional assessment method, and the measured BMD combines the cortical and cancellous bones. Therefore, it is not possible to only assess the cortical bone with DEXA, even though the cortical bone has an important role in bone strength.
µCT is a three-dimensional assessment method that can be used to evaluate the cortical and cancellous bones separately [18]. Although the results of this study showed that cortical BMD did not differ at all weeks, the cortical bone width was higher in the TPTD group at all weeks, similar to previous reports [19]. TPTD may accelerate cortical bone formation and increase the cortical bone width. µCT can be used to focus on the cortical bone. However, µCT is a mineral-based histomorphological assessment method and is therefore unable to assess non-mineral items.
Similar to µCT, MRI is another three-dimensional assessment method. However, while µCT is used to assess minerals, MRI may be used to assess proton signals. The proton signal obtained from the cortical bone was from free and bound water [20]. The proton signal from free water has a millisecond T2 relaxation time and can be detected using PDWI, a conventional MRI method. On the other hand, the proton signal from bound water had a T2 relaxation time of microseconds and could not be detected by PDWI [21]. In contrast, SWIFT can be used to detect signals with very short T2 relaxation times, allowing the detection of signals of bound water [9]. In this study, although the PDWI-SNR showed no differences at all weeks, the SWIFT-SNR was higher in the TPTD group than in the non-TPTD group only at 4 weeks after the initiation of TPTD treatment. It was possible to detect the effect of TPTD as a signal of an increase in the amount of bound water in the cortical bone early after the initiation of TPTD treatment.
TPTD has been reported to greatly improve bone turnover in the early phase after treatment initiation [22, 23]. With SWIFT, high signals were also detected at 4 weeks after the initiation of TPTD treatment, and the formation rate of the cortical bone in bone histomorphometry was also high at 4 weeks after the initiation of TPTD treatment compared with other weeks. We believe that the signal detected by SWIFT reflects a marked increase in the bone formation rate in the cortical bone. Considering that bound water is abundant in the collagen in new bone areas and decreases with mineralization [24], the increase in the bone formation rate should be captured in SWIFT by detecting the signal of the bound water that exists in the collagen of new bone areas. From the present results, SWIFT seems to be more suitable to detect initial cortical bone formation than other imaging methods, such as PDWI, CT, and DEXA. However, the increase in bone formation rate in the TPTD group at 12 and 24 weeks after the initiation of TPTD treatment could not be evaluated by SWIFT. This may have been because the slight increase in the bone formation rate may have been insufficient to detect a signal difference.
Other methods for assessing bone turnover include bone turnover markers by blood sampling and bone histomorphometry by biopsy. Bone turnover markers reflect the metabolism of the whole bone; therefore, site-specific evaluation was not possible. Furthermore, it is difficult to accurately evaluate the values due to the influence of renal function [25]. Although bone histomorphometry by biopsy can accurately evaluate bone turnover, it is necessary to extract the region to be evaluated, which makes it highly invasive. Furthermore, the sample obtained by extraction was also small, and the amount of information was lacking [26]. SWIFT is a non-invasive method that can assess bone turnover in a site- and time-specific manner, and it may be used to assess bone turnover as an alternative method to bone turnover markers or bone histomorphometry by biopsy.
This study had two limitations. First, slight increases in the bone formation rate may not have been detectable as differences in SWIFT signals. Because the rate itself was slow, the proportion of the new bone areas in the cortical bone was small; thus, we believe that the difference in the SWIFT signal could not be detected. We recommend verifying the extent of the bone formation rate that can be detected as a signal in the future. Second, bone turnover markers were not measured. Bone turnover markers are commonly used to assess bone turnover and should be measured to compare the results of SWIFT with those of conventional test. However, we believe that the measurement by bone histomorphometry was sufficient to evaluate the bone formation rate.