A biomechanical study of osteoporotic vertebral trabecular bone: The use of micro-CT and high-resolution finite element analysis

Osteoporosis is one of the most dangerous skeletal diseases in relation to the highest fracture risk in vertebral bones. A considerable amount of work has been done to investigate the biomechanical characteristics of osteoporotic vertebral trabecular bone. Previous researchers studied the elastic characteristics using a micro-finite element (micro-FE) model, used to analyze realistic trabecular architectures in full detail, based on micro-computed tomography (μCT). Since osteoporotic compression fracture is closely associated with the mechanical characteristics of the vertebral trabecular bone and there were few micro-FE models to account for all of the elastic and plastic characteristics in vertebral trabecular bone, this study analyzed the effect of voxel resolution on the plastic characteristics as well as the elastic characteristics of three-dimensional (3D) osteoporotic lumbar trabecular bone models. Also, we evaluated the effect of specimen geometry on this problem. It has been reported that a cubic specimen with side length 6.5mm was suggested as standard specimens for the experimental test of trabecular bone. Current study examined whether or not the effect of the specimen geometry on the experimental test may be also applied to the simulated compression test of trabecular bone specimens. The experimental test employing the rapid prototyping (RP) technique and INSTRON test machine is performed to indirectly validate the results of the simulated compression test by micro-FE analysis. The review finished with the verification about the effects of the simulated compression test.