Simulation of Subject Specific Bone Remodeling

Abstract

Conditions of low bone density (e.g., osteoporosis) are major health concerns nowadays. Particularly, vertebral compression fracture is one of the severe conditions that affects the patient's daily functionality and quality of life. The vertebral compression fracture is mainly caused by overloading on weak cancellous bone structures. Thus an effective method that measures the loads on the vertebra and predicts the change of cancellous bone structure under the loads can be very helpful in assisting clinical diagnosis and treatment of low bone density conditions.

This study demonstrates a simulation method that can eventually be incorporated with clinical treatment tailored for a particular individual to prevent bone loss and vertebral compression fractures. This method simulates the bone remodeling process with the inputs of initial cancellous bone structure, the stress and strain as a result of mechanical stimulus, and biological factor such as age. To demonstrate the use of the method, this study conducted the simulation of the bone changes under different physical activities. The result of the iterative simulation is an optimized cancellous structure, which can be characterized by a set of bone parameters. The simulation uses optimized algorithms and parallelization of computing to achieve computing effectiveness and cost efficiency. Thus, using the simulation, the cancellous structure can be characterized quantitatively for clinical diagnosis in individual cases, and facilitate informed decisions on a patient's lifestyle for bone health.