Concurrent consideration of cortical and cancellous bone within continuum bone remodelling

Area of Science:

• Biomechanics
• Computational Biology
• Materials Science

Background:

• Continuum bone remodelling models predict how mechanical forces affect bone density.
• Existing models often focus solely on cancellous bone, neglecting cortical bone's role.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and evaluate a continuum bone remodelling model that incorporates both cortical and cancellous bone.
• To investigate the interaction between cortical and cancellous bone in density evolution.
• To assess the impact of including cortical bone on remodelling predictions.

Main Methods:

• Introduced an initial volume fraction to differentiate between cortical and cancellous bone.
• Utilized a point-wise example to test novel model behaviors.
• Applied the model to a proximal femur to demonstrate bone type interaction.

Main Results:

• The model successfully simulated the interaction between cortical and cancellous bone.
• Initial density distributions influenced the demonstrated bone type interactions.
• Including cortical bone in the model significantly altered the predicted density evolution of cancellous bone.

Conclusions:

• Continuum bone remodelling models should include cortical bone for accurate predictions.
• The interaction between cortical and cancellous bone is crucial for understanding bone adaptation.
• Neglecting cortical bone can lead to inaccurate assessments of bone density changes under mechanical stimuli.