In Vitro Mechanical Evaluation of Mandibular Bone Transport Devices

Bone transport distraction osteogenesis (BTDO) is a surgical procedure that has beenused over the last 30 years for the correction of segmental defects produced mainly bytrauma and oncological resections. Application of BTDO has several clinical advantagesover traditional surgical techniques. Over the past few years, several BTDO devices havebeen introduced to reconstruct mandibular bone defects. Based on the location and out-line of the defect, each device requires a uniquely shaped reconstruction plate. To date,no biomechanical evaluations of mandibular BTDO devices have been reported in the lit-erature. The present study evaluated the mechanical behavior of three different shapedprototypes of a novel mandibular bone transport reconstruction plate and its transportunit for the reconstruction of segmental bone defects of the mandible by using numericalmodels complemented with mechanical laboratory tests to characterize strength, fatigue,and stability. The strength test evaluated device failures under extreme loads and wascomplemented with optimization procedures to improve the biomechanical behavior ofthe devices. The responses of the prototypes were characterized to improve their designand identify weak and strong regions in order to avoid posterior device failure in clinicalapplications. Combinations of the numerical and mechanical laboratory results wereused to compare and validate the models. In addition, the results remark the importanceof reducing the number of animals used in experimental tests by increasing computa-tional and in vitro trials. [DOI: 10.1115/1.4026561]Keywords: bending test, finite element, tension test, bone distraction, medical device