Total en bloc spondylectomy (TES) is the most efficient surgical treatment to prevent recurrence of malignant vertebral tumor. In this surgery, a vertebral spacer that is a titanium mesh cylinder with smashed autograft or allograft bone is replaced to the tumorous vertebra between the remaining healthy vertebrae. Then the vertebrae, which are upper and lower the titanium mesh cylinder, are connected by instruments. Once anterior fusion occurred between the healthy vertebrae and bone graft inside of the titanium mesh cylinder, the spinal reconstruction became more stable and reliable. Role of the instruments is considered as initial fixation until anterior body fusion is obtained. Occurrence of the anterior fusion depends on mechanical condition around the bone graft. Adequate mechanical stimuli are necessary to achieve the anterior body fusion and to maintain the fusion during bone remodeling process. So that, it is important to evaluate mechanical stress occurred in the bone graft and the titanium mesh cylinder. Tow types of spinal reconstruction method after TES are available in recent clinical use. One is the multilevel posterior instrumentation, and another is the short circumferential instrumentation. In this study, mechanical stress or loading occurred in the instruments and the titanium mesh cylinder was experimentally evaluated for both the reconstructions. Advantages and disadvantages of the reconstructions were discussed comparing the results.
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