Biomechanics of Thoracolumbar Spine with Vertebral Compression Fractures

Vertebral subsequent fractures phenomenon following primary vertebral compression fractures (VCFs) at the adjacent vertebral level has becoming debatable issues among medical practitioners. This condition might lead into high mortality and morbidity rates as osteoporosis has becoming a prevalence world health issues. The main agenda of this study is to investigate the biomechanics of thoracolumbar spine with VCFs by comparing its stress and strain distributions, kyphotic deformity angle and bone density distributions to the healthy spine. To accomplish this objective, an image-based finite element method was used to assess the aforementioned conditions. The results indicated that the deformed spine tend to produce higher stress and strain distribution in comparison to the healthy spine as the degree of the kyphotic deformity and the bone density deteriorated.