Patient specific finite volume modeling for intraosseous PMMA cement flow simulation in vertebral cancellous bone

Abstract

Current computational models for vertebroplasty research are limited to post-procedure biomechanical evaluation. No existing work describes the computational modeling procedure for polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) flow within vertebral body during vertebroplasty. Using a direct voxel conversion technique, together with a boundary element distortion for geometrical compliance, a modeling platform have been custom coded to generate models of vertebral bodies from radiological images. Also, mathematical models describing cancellous bone permeability and the rheological behavior of PMMA cement have been determined and used as inputs for the simulation. Vertebroplasty was performed on cadaver vertebral bodies, and radiological images of these specimens were used for modeling. The PMMA cement distribution from simulation was compared to that from actual vertebroplasty. It was determined that the simulations were able to predict 67.6% of the experimental PMMA cement distribution Such computational models can be valuable for pre-operative evaluation of surgical procedure and better biomechanical studies.