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Poroelastic analysis of bone tissue differentiation by using the boundary element method

Abstract:

Fracture healing is initiated and tightly regulated mainly by growth factors and by mechanical environment around the callus site. Biomechanics of fracture healing have been previously studied. Most computational models are based on finite elements and some of them study the level of strain or stress in the different tissues. These strain/stress fields are the main mechanical stimuli affecting cell differentiation and ossification pathway. In this work, we incorporated that hypothesis into a poroelastic axi-symmetric boundary element callus model, where the pore pressure was included as a part of the stimuli function. This analysis allowed us to extend the observations made by other authors and a new poroelastic correlation between mechanical conditions and local tissue formation is proposed. This work shows the capability of the boundary element method to characterize the tissue phenotypes during a progressive healing process. The results were in good agreement with those reported in previous works. © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.