A GENERALIZED PROCEDURE FOR PREDICTING BONE MASS REGULATION BY MECHANICAL STRAIN

Understanding of the mechanisms that control the modifications of the bone weight-bearing attitude in response to external load conditions attracted considerable attention from researchers in the biological, medical, and radiological fields. This study presents a general approach for predicting the reaction of the bone tissue to cyclic loads with different intensity and temporal distribution. Empirical relationships are generated that incorporate the wealth of published experimental data, obtained from in vivo, ex vivo, and in vitro studies, into an integrated analysis. The developed procedure was guided by and is in close agreement with the published experimental data. The approach provides a general framework for predicting the effect of mechanical strain deviation from the physiological strain environment only, without consideration of the influence of any other changes in the biochemical, physiological, or psychological mechanisms controlling bone growth and damage. Further clinical investigations with controlled exercise and systematic bone scanning are necessary to check the applicability of the coefficients generated in the proposed method for general use on human subjects. © 1990 Springer-Verlag New York Inc.