Dr. Sumner et Tp. Andriacchi, ADAPTATION TO DIFFERENTIAL LOADING - COMPARISON OF GROWTH-RELATED CHANGES IN CROSS-SECTIONAL PROPERTIES OF THE HUMAN FEMUR AND HUMERUS, Bone, 19(2), 1996, pp. 121-126
Changes In long bone cross-sectional geometry during growth can be inf
luenced by biological and mechanical factors, Here, we assess relation
ships between cross-sectional geometric properties and length of the h
uman humerus and femur during postnatal growth to test the hypothesis
that loading history plays an important role in the development of adu
lt bone morphology. A skeletal sample including 83 paired humeri and f
emora from individuals between birth and age 30 was examined. Midshaft
cross-sectional geometric properties were determined based on compute
d tomographic scans and the two bones were compared by examining growt
h trajectories and scaling relationships between the cross-sectional p
roperties and bone length, The growth trajectories for both bones were
similar in many respects and showed that increase in length ceased by
age 20, whereas increase in cross-sectional properties continued into
the third decade of life, When compared to bone length, the cross-sec
tional geometric properties of the femur and humerus were similar earl
y in postnatal life, but increased at a greater rate in the femur part
icularly during the first decade of life, leading to divergent adult m
orphologies, A beam model was developed to predict maximum midshaft st
rains in each bone as a function of age, The moment acting on the femu
r was estimated from an analysis of gait in children and the moment ac
ting on the humerus was chosen so that the magnitude of the maximum mi
dshaft strains in the two bones was equivalent in adulthood, With this
model, the maximum midshaft strains for the femur were predicted to b
e higher than for the humerus during the first decade of life, These d
ata support the concept that load history plays an important role in a
ccretion of bone mass during postnatal growth.