ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Vet. Sci.
Sec. Veterinary Imaging
This article is part of the Research TopicInnovations in Veterinary Diagnostics for Enhancing Animal Health and WelfareView all 18 articles
Comparison of two CT-based methods for tibial bone mineral density assessment and their associations with bone and eggshell traits in laying hens
Provisionally accepted
Webert Aurino da Silva1
Carlos Bôa-Viagem Rabello1
Lilian Francisco Arantes de Souza1Elton Francisco de Oliveira1Adrielle Carneiro Araújo Santos1Leanndra de Pádua Ferreira Santos1
Apolônio Gomes Ribeiro2Júlio Cézar dos Santos Nascimento1
Marcos Jose Batista Dos Santos1
Lucas Rannier Ribeiro Antonino Carvalho3*
Fabiano Sellos Costa1- 1Universidade Federal Rural de Pernambuco, Recife, Brazil
- 2Universidade Federal da Paraiba Centro de Ciencias Agrarias, Areia, Brazil
- 3Karolinska Institutet (KI), Solna, Sweden
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Bone quality is essential for the health, welfare, and productivity of laying hens and can be accurately assessed through quantitative computed tomography (QCT) for bone mineral density (BMD). This study compared two QCT-based methodologies for tibial BMD evaluation in 48 Dekalb White hens aged 48 weeks and examined their correlations with bone composition and eggshell quality. Method 1 (M1) analyzed four cortical quadrants as regions of interest, whereas Method 2 (M2) applied semi-automatic segmentation of the entire bone area using predefined density thresholds. Results showed a moderate correlation (r = 0.6822, p < 0.001) but low concordance (CCC = 0.120) between methods, with M1 overestimating BMD. Mean BMD values were 1152.49 ± 218.54 and 711.22 ± 118.4milligrams of hydroxyapatite per cubic centimeter (mgHA/cm³) for M1 and M2, respectively. M1 showed only mild correlations with bone parameters, such as bone weight (R² = 0.423, p = 0.038) and volume (R² = 0.086, p = 0.043), and weak or no associations with eggshell traits. In contrast, M2 exhibited stronger relationships with bone composition (bone weight: R² = 0.789, p = 0.003; bone volume: R² = 0.535, p = 0.010) and significant negative correlations with eggshell weight (R² = –0.741, p = 0.009), thickness (R² = –0.617, p = 0.017), and breaking strength (R² = –0.654, p = 0.048). Overall, M2 provided more accurate and biologically meaningful BMD estimates than M1, supporting its use for future QCT-based bone assessment in laying hens.
Keywords: bone strength, quantitative imaging, skeletal integrity, Eggshell quality, bonemineralization
Received: 21 Sep 2025; Accepted: 27 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Silva, Rabello, Souza, Oliveira, Santos, Santos, Ribeiro, Nascimento, Santos, Carvalho and Costa. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Lucas Rannier Ribeiro Antonino Carvalho
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