Abstract
Electrical stimulation is a promising therapeutic approach for the regeneration of large bone defects. Innovative electrically stimulating implants for critical size defects in the lower jaw are under development and need to be optimized in silico and tested in vivo prior to application. In this context, numerical modelling and simulation are useful tools in the design process. In this study, a numerical model of an electrically stimulated minipig mandible was established to find optimal stimulation parameters that allow for a maximum area of beneficially stimulated tissue. Finite-element simulations were performed to determine the stimulation impact of the proposed implant design and to optimize the electric field distribution resulting from sinusoidal low-frequency ( f = 20 Hz ) electric stimulation. Optimal stimulation parameters of the electrode length h el = 25 m m and the stimulation potential φ stim = 0.5 V were determined. These parameter sets shall be applied in future in vivo validation studies. Furthermore, our results suggest that changing tissue properties during the course of the healing process might make a feedback-controlled stimulation system necessary.
Highlights
Electrical stimulation of bone has received a lot of attention in recent decades
The reason for the therapeutic effect of electrical stimulation is seen in the imitation of the electric fields that occur naturally in bone as a bioelectric tissue
We introduce the steps that need to be performed to establish a bioelectric numerical model of electrically stimulated biological tissue. These steps include setting up the anatomical and technical model, i.e., segmenting computer tomographic (CT) data and computer-aided design (CAD) modelling based on the segmentation
Summary
Electrical stimulation of bone has received a lot of attention in recent decades. It can be employed to improve bone healing in the case of fractures [1,2,3,4,5], non-unions [6,7], or other bone defects [8,9,10]such as those resulting after tumor resection. One example is in long bones showing the accumulation of charges when exposed to mechanical stress or strain: On the concave side negative charges accumulate and bone formation can be observed, whereas positive charges and bone resorption occur on the convex side [13]. These effects are attributed to streaming potentials [14,15,16] and piezoelectricity [17,18,19]. Some studies hypothesize strong interdependencies between both phenomena [20,21]
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