About this Abstract |
| Meeting |
2027 TMS Annual Meeting & Exhibition
|
| Symposium
|
Biological Materials Science
|
| Presentation Title |
Structural disruption of a hierarchical bone marrow environment in chronic lymphocytic leukemia |
| Author(s) |
Claire Acevedo |
| On-Site Speaker (Planned) |
Claire Acevedo |
| Abstract Scope |
Bone marrow is a hierarchical, multi-tissue biological material whose mineralized trabeculae and soft intertrabecular marrow must coordinate to maintain skeletal integrity. Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is linked to fragility fractures despite normal bone density, suggesting alterations of the material quality at the microstructural level. We used synchrotron micro-computed tomography to characterize bone marrow core biopsies from 17 CLL patients, stratified by leukemic infiltration (via k-means clustering), and applied deep-learning segmentation to quantify changes in osteocyte lacunae and intertrabecular marrow architecture. High CLL infiltration was associated with a 40% reduction in osteocyte lacunar density and a 101% increase in normalized marrow surface area-to-volume ratio, indicating disruption and fragmentation of the intertrabecular compartment. Both structural alterations correlated with leukemic infiltration and showed partial recovery following treatment. These findings reveal a CLL-driven remodeling phenotype linking leukemic burden to structural degradation of this hierarchical biological material, offering new microstructural biomarkers for assessing marrow health. |
| Proceedings Inclusion? |
Planned: |
| Keywords |
Biomaterials, Machine Learning, |