Effects of oestrogen deficiency on rat mandibular and tibial microarchitecture

Objectives: To investigate the effects of oestrogen deficiency on the microarchitecture of trabecular bone in the mandible and the tibia and to test whether they are correlated. Methods: Twenty-four age-matched Lewis-Brown-Norway female rats underwent surgical intervention either to remove ovaries (ovariectomy, \batchmode \documentclass[fleqn,10pt,legalpaper]{article} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amsmath} \pagestyle{empty} \begin{document} \(n=12\) \end{document}) or to create a complementary control group (sham-operated, \batchmode \documentclass[fleqn,10pt,legalpaper]{article} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amsmath} \pagestyle{empty} \begin{document} \(n=12\) \end{document}). Sixteen weeks later, the animals were sacrificed and the left side of the mandibles and the tibias were scanned with high resolution micro-CT (15 μm). Multiple morphological measures including the ratio of bone volume/tissue volume, trabecular thickness, trabecular separation and st...