A visit in theatre
Lisa Mazouzi joined us in theatre this week. She is an engineering student with the QUT and ARC Training Centre for Joint Biomechanics, working with the group on computational models of bone remodelling.
The work
The models simulate osteoporosis and the effect of drug treatments on bone. Bone quality is directly relevant to shoulder surgery: it determines whether an anchor will hold a rotator cuff repair, and whether a stemless implant can be used in a shoulder replacement. Being in theatre to see how those decisions are made is useful context for the modelling work.
Bone remodelling and why it is modelled
Bone is not static. It is continuously removed and rebuilt in response to the loads placed on it, which is why it thickens where it is loaded and thins where it is not. Osteoporosis is a loss of bone density and structure that leaves bone weaker and more likely to fracture. A computational model represents these processes mathematically, so that the effect of a change, whether in loading, in a drug, or in the presence of an implant, can be examined without having to observe it in a patient over years. Individual results vary.
Why an engineering centre works with surgeons
An ARC Training Centre is an Australian Research Council funded programme that trains research students in an applied research area, in partnership with industry and with the professions that will use the results. Joint biomechanics sits between engineering and surgery, and a model is only as useful as the assumptions behind it.
That is why time in theatre is worth a research student's week. Seeing the bone an implant is actually fixed into, the forces a surgeon applies, and the point at which a surgeon decides the bone will not hold a particular implant gives a modeller a clearer sense of which questions are worth modelling and which simplifications are reasonable to make.
Related information
See our post on the QUT joint biomechanics research centre, and our research page.