Project title: Mechanically Tuned Bone Model to Evaluate Surgical Fracture Repair
Supervisor: Dr Richard Van Arkel
Surgically repairing a fractured fibula fracture requires a 7-hole third tubular fracture plate and lag screw. It is imperative that this stabilisation mechanism prevents excessive movement between the two bone fracture sites to ensure proper fracture healing occurs. Failure to do so may result in a non-union which is difficult to treat and leaves the patient in a lot of pain.
There’s a clinical need to understand whether the number of screws in the plate can be reduced without compromising the fracture fixation strength and stability. The most distal fibula fractures have insufficient bone available to use the normal 6 screws due to the presence of the ankle joint which cannot be screwed in to, fewer screws would be preferable in these cases. Cost saving may also be achieved by reducing the number of screws required.
Biomechanically modelling the fibula is difficult. One cannot use cadaveric bone as the region of interest is next to an articular joint making it hard to clamp the bone during testing Traditional polymer bone models cannot be used either as they do not sufficiently match bone properties and are expensive. We are therefore using additive manufacture to design mechanically tuned fixtured bones, which will undergo simulated walking loads with multiple screw configurations applied. Using optical tracking to monitor the fracture surfaces we aim to answer for the first time whether a fracture repaired using fewer screws remains stable.