A REVIEW ON BIOMECHANICAL ASPECTS OF VERTEBROPLASTY AND KYPHOPLASTY USING FINITE ELEMENT MODELING-BASED METHODS

The vertebroplasty (VP) and kyphoplasty (KP) are two minimally invasive surgeries using cement augmentation to treat the osteoporotic vertebrae in elderlies in order to relieve pain and prevent the continuation of microfractures. Biomechanists have always tried to assess the mechanical behavior of vertebrae after cement augmentation by using both the experimental and theoretical methods such as finite element modeling (FEM). In this study, 31 related articles using FEM in analyzing the VP and KP have been reviewed. This study included two main categories of spinal load distribution and tension in vertebrae after the VP and KP operations. This could be obtained by conducting FEM on the whole spine or other sectors of it such as intervertebral disc (IVD) or end plates (EPs). This study also referred to articles predicting the probability of adjacent fractures following VP and KP. The most common software employed in FEM was ABAQUS, applied for static and dynamic loads’ analyses. It was found that most of the reviewed articles adopted reverse engineering techniques by converting 2D computed tomography (CT) scan images into 3D reconstructed models. The material properties were generally taken from the literature. In more than 80% of studies, the model geometry was based on CT data of the spine. Almost 45% of the studies have attempted to compare the simulated vertebra after augmentation with experimental results taken from the literature (5% of the reviewed articles) or their own experimental tests (40% of the reviewed articles).