Biomechanical Analysis of the Cervical Spine Following Disc Degeneration, Disc Fusion, and Disc Replacement: A Finite Element Study.

Background: Discectomy and fusion is considered the "gold standard" treatment for clinical manifestations of degenerative disc disease in the cervical spine. However, clinical and biomechanical studies suggest that fusion may lead to adjacent-segment disease. Cervical disc arthroplasty preserves the motion at the operated level and may potentially decrease the occurrence of adjacent segment degeneration.

The effect of multi-level laminoplasty and laminectomy on the biomechanics of the cervical spine: a finite element study.

Laminectomy has been regarded as a standard treatment for multi-level cervical stenosis. Concern for complications such as kyphosis has limited the indication of multi-level laminectomy; hence it is often augmented with an instrumented fusion. Laminoplasty has emerged as a motion preserving alternative.

Hexahedral meshing of subject-specific anatomic structures using mapped building blocks.

To extend the use of computational techniques like finite element analysis to clinical settings, it would be beneficial to have the ability to generate a unique model for every subject quickly and efficiently. This work is an extension of two previously developed mapped meshing tools that utilised force and displacement control to map a template mesh to a subject-specific surface. The objective of this study was to map a template block structure, common to multiblock meshing techniques, to a subject-specific surface.

Growing multiblock structures: a semi-automated approach to block placement for multiblock hexahedral meshing.

Finite element (FE) analysis is a cornerstone of orthopaedic biomechanics research. Three-dimensional medical imaging provides sufficient resolution for the subject-specific FE models to be generated from these data-sets. FE model development requires discretisation of a three-dimensional domain, which can be the most time-consuming component of a FE study.

Validation of a C2-C7 cervical spine finite element model using specimen-specific flexibility data.

This study presents a specimen-specific C2-C7 cervical spine finite element model that was developed using multiblock meshing techniques. The model was validated using in-house experimental flexibility data obtained from the cadaveric specimen used for mesh development. The C2-C7 specimen was subjected to pure continuous moments up to +/-1.

Toward the development of virtual surgical tools to aid orthopaedic FE analyses.

Computational models of joint anatomy and function provide a means for biomechanists, physicians, and physical therapists to understand the effects of repetitive motion, acute injury, and degenerative diseases. Finite element models, for example, may be used to predict the outcome of a surgical intervention or to improve the design of prosthetic implants. Countless models have been developed over the years to address a myriad of orthopaedic procedures.

An interactive multiblock approach to meshing the spine.

Finite element (FE) analysis is a useful tool to study spine biomechanics as a complement to laboratory-driven experimental studies. Although individualized models have the potential to yield clinically relevant results, the demands associated with modeling the geometric complexity of the spine often limit its utility. Existing spine FE models share similar characteristics and are often based on similar assumptions, but vary in geometric fidelity due to the mesh generation techniques that were used.

IA-FEMesh: an open-source, interactive, multiblock approach to anatomic finite element model development.

Finite element (FE) analysis is a valuable tool in musculoskeletal research. The demands associated with mesh development, however, often prove daunting. In an effort to facilitate anatomic FE model development we have developed an open-source software toolkit (IA-FEMesh).

Automated bony region identification using artificial neural networks: reliability and validation measurements.

Objective: The objective was to develop tools for automating the identification of bony structures, to assess the reliability of this technique against manual raters, and to validate the resulting regions of interest against physical surface scans obtained from the same specimen.

Materials And Methods: Artificial intelligence-based algorithms have been used for image segmentation, specifically artificial neural networks (ANNs). For this study, an ANN was created and trained to identify the phalanges of the human hand.

Validation of phalanx bone three-dimensional surface segmentation from computed tomography images using laser scanning.

Objective: To examine the validity of manually defined bony regions of interest from computed tomography (CT) scans.

Materials And Methods: Segmentation measurements were performed on the coronal reformatted CT images of the three phalanx bones of the index finger from five cadaveric specimens. Two smoothing algorithms (image-based and Laplacian surface-based) were evaluated to determine their ability to represent accurately the anatomic surface.

Arthroscopic lens distortion correction applied to dynamic cartilage loading.

It is difficult to study the deformation of articular cartilage because it is an inhomogenous material with depth dependent constituents. In many experimental studies, cartilage is assumed to behave homogeneously and is subjected to only static or quasi-static loads. In this study, a thick walled, mechanically active culture device (TRIAX) was used to apply cyclic loading to cartilage explants at physiological stress levels.

Loading and boundary condition influences in a poroelastic finite element model of cartilage stresses in a triaxial compression bioreactor.

Background: We developed a poroelastic finite element (FE) model of cartilage in dynamic triaxial compression to parametrically analyze the effects of loading and boundary conditions on a baseline model. Conventional mechanical tests on articular cartilage such as confined and unconfined compression, indentation, etc., do not fully allow for modulation of compression and shear at physiological levels whereas triaxial compression does.