# MRI of Proximal Femur Bone Quality for Monitoring Short-Term Response to Osteoporosis Therapy

> **NIH NIH R01** · NEW YORK UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE · 2022 · $582,572

## Abstract

Project Summary
Osteoporosis, a disease of bone fragility predisposing an individual to fracture, is a major public health
problem. Over two million osteoporotic fractures occur per year, resulting in greater than $17 billion in direct
annual costs for fracture care. Hip fractures account for 70% of these costs as they have the most devastating
clinical consequences; the mortality rate in the first year after hip fracture is as high as 24%. Osteoporosis is
caused by reduced bone mass and deterioration in bone microarchitecture, which together weaken bone.
Several bone-strengthening drugs are available to reduce fracture risk, and in placebo-controlled trials, these
drugs have different efficacies for fracture risk reduction depending on the skeletal site. Unfortunately, it is
unknown which drug or drug combination works best to reduce overall fracture risk and in particular fracture
risk in the hip. This gap in knowledge exists because clinical trialists lack an endpoint in the hip that would
permit superiority trials -- aimed at determining the best bone-strengthening drug or regimen -- to be performed
with feasible costs, sample sizes, and follow-up times. Currently, fracture and bone mineral density (BMD) are
the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved endpoints used in clinical trials, but fractures have a low
incidence and BMD changes very slowly. In addition, changes in BMD after therapy only reflect 4-52% of the
variance in fracture risk reduction. As a result, tens of thousands of subjects are necessary to power head-to-
head, active comparator trials aimed at demonstrating the superiority of one agent over another. Bone
microarchitecture has not routinely been monitored in osteoporosis clinical trials, even though its deterioration
is included in the World Health Organization disease definition of osteoporosis. We have recently
demonstrated the feasibility of imaging hip microarchitecture in vivo using a clinical magnetic resonance
imaging (MRI) scanner. We have shown that assessment of hip microarchitectural parameters (via digital and
volumetric topological analysis) and strength (via finite element analysis) is reproducible and provides
information about bone quality and fracture risk that is not captured by DXA. Unlike computed tomography
(CT), MRI can image at a resolution high enough to depict bone microarchitecture and does not administer
ionizing radiation, which is ideal for short-term serial imaging. And unlike prior microarchitectural imaging
studies, which have been performed in the distal radius or distal tibia using either MRI or high-resolution
peripheral quantitative computed tomography (HR-pQCT), we can now image bone microarchitecture in the
hip, the most devastating fracture site. In this study, we now aim to demonstrate the value of the MRI test,
beyond the value of DXA, for monitoring short-term therapy response in the hip. This work will lay the
foundation for the use of hip microarchitecture and strength, in ad...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10394252
- **Project number:** 5R01AR073851-04
- **Recipient organization:** NEW YORK UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
- **Principal Investigator:** Gregory Chang
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $582,572
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-05-01 → 2024-04-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10394252

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10394252, MRI of Proximal Femur Bone Quality for Monitoring Short-Term Response to Osteoporosis Therapy (5R01AR073851-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10394252. Licensed CC0.

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