Computational biomechanical analysis of postoperative inferior tibiofibular syndesmosis: a modified modeling method

Abstract

To analyze the biomechanical effect of syndesmotic screw through three and four cortices, a total of 12 finite element models simulating healthy ankles, tibiofibular syndesmosis injured ankles, and post-operative ankles by screw fixations through three or four cortices were built. A set of biomechanical data were obtained to find that screw fixation methods for inferior tibiofibular syndesmosis can help recover most of the biomechanical relations of the ankle especially the tricortical fixation, while the screw of quadricortical fixation bear more stress than the tricortical fixation. The modeling method for finite element models was also modified for saving more time and realizing personalized modeling for clinical application.

Keywords:

• Computational biomechanics
• finite element analysis
• inferior tibiofibular syndesmosis injury
• internal fixation

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the radiology department of East Hospital, Tongji University School of Medicine, for their assistance with original image collection.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grants No. 81271989 and 81370053).