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Endocrine Abstracts (2012) 29 S45.2

ICEECE2012 Symposia Bone quality and bone strength (3 abstracts)

Finite element analysis in osteology

P. Zysset


University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.


Osteoporosis is a metabolic bone disease characterized by low bone mass leading to fractures that are associated with high mortality, morbidity and growing health care costs. Diagnosis of osteoporosis relies on dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) to measure bone areal density, which is constantly reported as a poor surrogate of bone fracture risk.

Bone tissue is a composite of collagen, mineral and water, which multi-scale organization is increasingly well understood with the help of X-ray computer tomography. Its mechanical properties are assessed with various techniques at various levels and are altered by aging and disease.

Finite element analysis (FEA) is a widely applied engineering method to compute the strength of mechanical structures such as airplanes, bridges or cellular phones subjected to various loading scenarios. The increasing resolution of X-ray computer tomography opens new perspectives for finite element analysis of human bones from the constituent up to the organ level.

In the laboratory, desktop micro-computed tomography systems allow evaluation of trabecular architecture using micro finite element models of bone samples by converting directly each image voxel into a finite element. These microFE models bring new insight in bone mechanics, but often require high performance computing.

In a clinical environment, high resolution peripheral computed tomography provides detailed anatomy of bones such as the distal radius and permits to extract cortical thickness, volume fraction, orientation of trabecular bone in order to generate accurate patient-specific finite element models. Quantitative computed tomography delivers bone mineral density distributions and can also be exploited as a template for simplistic patient-specific finite element models. These models are carefully validated by experiments, require a standard PC for computation and can be used to make patient-specific predictions of bone strength that are significantly more accurate than DEXA.

Declaration of interest: The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest that could be perceived as prejudicing the impartiality of the research project.

Funding: This research did not receive any specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sector.

Volume 29

15th International & 14th European Congress of Endocrinology

European Society of Endocrinology 

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