K. Okelly et al., A QUANTITATIVE TECHNIQUE FOR COMPARING SYNTHETIC POROUS HYDROXYAPATITE STRUCTURES AND CANCELLOUS BONE, Journal of materials science. Materials in medicine, 7(4), 1996, pp. 207-213
There are many different materials currently available for cancellous
bo ne grafting. There is however, very little information relating the
morphology of these materials to cancellous bone. Work was undertaken
to develop a quantitative method for comparing synthetic hydroxyapati
te bone structures with cancel lo us bone. The bases for com pa risen
were mean plate thickness, mean plate distance, mineral area fraction,
mineral volume fraction and plate orientation coupled with mechanical
tests. The aim of this work was to develop a protocol for assessing w
hether these critical parameters which influence the success of bone i
mplants were achieved in the synthetic materials. The methodology is s
uccessful in providing quantitative information about the mineral area
fraction, the mean plate distance or pore size and the intercept freq
uency as a function of angle. Combining these three provides a quantit
ative measure of how much mineral there is and how it is distributed a
nd oriented. The mechanical tests yield strengths and moduli values ba
sed on apparent density. The results of the mechanical tests can also
be plotted as functions of the more discrete structural features such
as those quantified in the image analysis to allow for even more equit
able and systematic comparisons of different porous materials.