Poster Presentations
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3D printing for fabrication of trabecular bone scaffolds for early osteoporosis diagnostics
Petra Juskova, Postdoctoral Fellow, Institut Curie
Patients with osteoporosis do not manifest any specific symptoms until the increase in the bone porosity ultimately results in fracture. Currently, techniques enabling to diagnose osteoporosis (X-ray tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, bone densitometry) do not provide quantitative information or are too expensive for routine analysis.
Measurements of ultrasound propagation are well-adapted to study biological tissues and represent a non-invasive and inexpensive alternative for early diagnostics of osteoporosis. However, systematic studies of the influence of the bone internal structure and porosity on the wave propagation require samples with controllable porosity and anisotropy. 3D printing allows simple and fast production of architectures designed using computer software [1] and can be optimized to prepare model samples for acoustic wave propagation studies. Structures formed from arrays of pillars with different distribution and sizes (100 – 400 micrometres) were fabricated to mimic bones with adjustable porosities. Additionally, exact 1:1 structure of the trabecular bone was reconstructed from a stack of micro-tomography images.
Experimental data from ultrasound measurements performed on these structures were in a good agreement with numerical simulations [2, 3] showing ability of the 3D printing to produce structures reproducing acoustic properties of the trabecular bone [4].
PJ acknowledges individual Marie Sklodowska-Curie fellowship, 629277-FP7-PEOPLE-2013-IEF.
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