MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF POLYURETHANE FOAM COMPARED WITH VALUES FOR NORMAL AND OSTEOPOROTIC HUMAN CANCELLOUS BONE

摘要

Rigid polyurethane (PU) foam is widely used as a test medium for mimicking human cancellous bone e.g. for investigating fixation of bone screws [1,2]. Whilst the solid and higher density PU foams are used as standard test materials [3], very little work has been carried out to date on modelling human osteoporotic bone. Osteoporosis (OP) is a bone disease in which bone resorption exceeds bone deposition, resulting in bone loss. Various low density, open cell rigid PU foams are available for use as OP bone models, but none of these has been standardised or universally accepted as a test material. In this study the objective was to determine whether low density PU foam might be suitable for mimicking human osteoporotic bone.