Dr Paige Little, our Senior Research Fellow met up with 2015 BSRG PhD graduate, Dr Bethany Keenan at the 16th CMBBE conference in New York in August. Dr Keenan is currently a Research Fellow in the School of Engineering at Cardiff University in Wales and was an author on four papers presented at the meeting.
Dr Little presented a sensitivity study of various Vertebral Body Tethering configurations using the BSRG’s patient specific finite element model of the idiopathic scoliosis spine. There is a growing interest in the use of Vertebral Body Tethering (VBT) surgery for skeletally immature idiopathic scoliosis (IS) patients. Anteriorly placed vertebral screws secure a deformable Polyethylene-Terephthalate (PET) tether. Before securing the tether, compressive force is applied between the vertebral screw heads inserted into the individual vertebrae being tethered by the surgeon. There are no clear guidelines regarding the force magnitude required to optimize deformity correction. In her work, the BSRG’s validated, patient-specific finite element (FE) model of Idiopathic Scoliosis was utilised to investigate the effect of four different VBT loading scenarios on the resulting spinal alignment and biomechanics.
The CMBBE 2019 meeting topics reflected the latest advances, innovations and applications of computer methods in biomechanics. The meeting highlighted emerging research areas as well as presenting innovative technologies in biomechanics, biomedical engineering as well as in imaging and visualization.
