CT-Based FE Bone Models
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Computed tomography-based finite element models of children's bones
IRAS ID
161794
Contact name
Amaka Offiah
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Sheffield Children's NHS Foundation Trust
Research summary
Up to 5% of children suffer a fracture annually; children with relatively low bone mass/density being at greater risk. By the age of 18 years, at least 90% of peak bone mass has been accrued and is dependant on genetic, hormonal and environmental factors. The peak bone mass attained during childhood and adolescence predicts the risk of osteoporosis in adult life.
Bone mineral density (BMD) predicts those adults at risk of fracture. However in children BMD values constantly change with age and are dependent on sex, body weight, pubertal stage, skeletal maturation and ethnicity. For these reasons BMD does not predict fracture risk in children and currently we have no reliable method that does.
Our understanding of fracture mechanisms is limited and does not completely account for specific features of the particular child (e.g. ethnicity, bone strength, body mass index). We believe that current engineering technology may help us develop techniques to more confidently understand injury mechanisms and predict fracture risk for the individual child.
We have successfully developed computed tomography (CT) - based models of pigs’ thighbones. Our computer models correctly predicted fractures of the bones in the real life laboratory situation in 87% of cases.
We then developed CT-based models of the bones of children who had the examination as part of their post-mortem investigations. Although we ascertained bone strength in relation to patient age and provided new information in this regard, we have not been able to validate these models because it is clearly inappropriate to fracture these children’s bones.
We are therefore taking a different approach to validation of our models and propose to recruit children presenting to our Emergency Department with accidental trauma, creating models from low dose peripheral CT scans and correlating with injury mechanisms and features such as sex, BMI and pubertal stage.REC name
Yorkshire & The Humber - South Yorkshire Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
14/YH/1156
Date of REC Opinion
30 Oct 2014
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion