Biomechanical assessment of screw safety between far cortical locking and locked plating constructs

Abstract

With the emerging concerns for more flexible and less stiff bridge constructs in the interest of stimulating bone healing, the technique of far cortical locking has been designed to reduce the stiffness of locked plating (LP) constructs while retaining construct strength. This study utilized simulation with diaphyseal bridge plating biomechanical models to investigate whether far cortical locking causes larger screw fracture risk than LP during rehabilitation. The fracture risk of the screws in the far cortical locking constructs increases in the non-osteoporotic and osteoporotic diaphysis compared with the screws in the LP constructs.

Keywords:

• Far cortical locking constructs
• bone screws assessment
• finite element analysis
• allowable stress
• high-cycle fatigue
• implant failure

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by the Science and Technology Project of Guangdong Province; Sanming Project of Medicine in Shenzhen; The National Key Research and Development Program of China.