EARLY DETECTION OF DELAYED UNION IN LOWER LEG FRACTURES USING A COMPUTERIZED ANALYSIS OF MECHANICAL VIBRATION REACTIONS OF BONE FOR ASSESSING THE STATE OF FRACTURE-HEALING
M. Fellinger et al., EARLY DETECTION OF DELAYED UNION IN LOWER LEG FRACTURES USING A COMPUTERIZED ANALYSIS OF MECHANICAL VIBRATION REACTIONS OF BONE FOR ASSESSING THE STATE OF FRACTURE-HEALING, Archives of orthopaedic and trauma surgery, 113(2), 1994, pp. 93-96
Standard X-ray techniques are used to follow up the healing process of
bone fractures. However, these methods allow only indirect conclusion
s about the stability of the healing bone, depending on the experience
of the clinician. In addition, by radiologic means, delayed union or
non-union can only be diagnosed on the basis of the absence of specifi
c changes such as callus formation. Therefore, efforts have been made
to develop alternative methods for monitoring the healing process. The
measuring principle of a non-invasive method is based on evaluation o
f changes in mechanical vibration reactions. The measuring system is c
omposed of two sound transducers, an amplifier module and an AD conver
ter attached to a PC. The assessment of 150 healthy individuals as wel
l as an initial measuring series after treatment of tibial fractures w
ith an external fixator system revealed highly significant differences
between intact and fractured tibias. Thus, computerised sonometry is
capable of supplying quantitatively recordable information about the s
tability of a fractured bone at any time in the healing process. Furth
ermore, this non-invasive technique allows early diagnosis of disorder
s in the repair process by the absence of change in the parameters.