The current work aimed at comparing, on site-matched cortical bone tissue, the micron-level elastic modulus E(a) derived from 200 MHz-scanning acoustic microscopy (SAM) acoustic impedance (Z) combined with bone mineral density (assessed by synchrotron radiation microcomputed tomography, SR-mu CT) to nanoindentation modulus E(n). A good correlation was observed between En and Z (R(2) = 0.67, p < 0.0001, root mean square error RMSE = 1.9 GPa). The acoustical elastic modulus E(a) derived from Z showed higher values of E compared to nanoindentation moduli. We assumed that the discrepancy between E(a) and E(n) values may likely be due to the fixed assumed value of Poisson's ratio while values comprised between 0.15 and 0.45 have been reported in the literature. Despite these differences, a highly significant correlation between E(a) and E(n) was found (R(2) = 0.66, p < 0.001, RMSE = 1.8 GPa) suggesting that SAM can reliably be used as a modality to quantitatively map the local variations of tissue-level bone elasticity. (C) 2009 The Japan Society of Applied Physics