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Chulalongkorn Medical Journal

Abstract

Background: Detecting bone union is a crucial process in treating bone fractures to prevent complications, including implant failure and bone nonunion. Nowadays, there are many methods and new innovative devices for detecting bone union through strain measurements, such as strain gauges, fluid level displacement, contrast media, and frequency changes. There is also a trend toward increasing these methods in the future. However, the patterns of bone healing studied with these methods still do not provide a standard for determining the true bone healing process. The aim of this study is to identify the most appropriate bone healing pattern for detecting bone healing through strain measurement via frequency changes.

Material and Methods: Twenty cadaveric tibial bones were tested for five different bone healing patterns, including fractures with gap distances, material replacements, and healing from the outer side, inner side, and middle. Each healing pattern includes four cadaveric bones evaluated under various axial loads of 100 N, 200 N, 300 N, and 400 N by Instron Electropuls e10000. Bone healing assessment utilizes bone union detection using a wire’s natural frequency (BUDWF) plate to detect strain change via the frequency change.

Results:All bone healing patterns can evaluate bone union by comparing the frequency changes under axial loads of 100 N and 400 N, with a mean difference ranging from 32.4% to 39.8%. Only the fracture with gap distance and material replacement can be assessed gradually in each phase of healing (12.3% in gap of 2.5 mm, p 0.01; 22.4% in gap of 5 mm, p 0.04; 31.8% in gap of 7.5 mm, p 0.005; 39.2% in gap of 10 mm, p 0.004; and 11.0% in saw bone, p 0.006; 19.5% in rubber, p 0.001; 25.8% in foam, p

Conclusions: The pattern of bone healing influences the assessment of bone union through the detection of strain changes. The methods involving gap distance and material replacement are the most suitable for resembling normal bone healing.

DOI

10.56808/2673-060X.5729

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