Effect of titanium plate fixation on bone healing

¹ Faculty of Science and Engineering, Kindai University
² Faculty of Biology-Oriented Science and Technology, Kindai University
³ Institute for Materials Research, Tohoku University
⁴ Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University
⁵ Graduate School of Science and Technology, Meijyo University
⁶ Institute of Materials and Systems for Sustainability, Nagoya University

^* Corresponding author: nakai@mech.kindai.ac.jp

Abstract

Bone formation which is a process before bone remodeling in fracture healing process, was investigated in this study by fixing metallic plate after an artificially created defect in a rabbit femur. Although a complete bone remodeling takes about 6 weeks, present study was conducted by observing the condition of the bone within 3 weeks of healing period. An artificial defect was made in a rabbit femur and Ti-6Al-4V ELI (Ti-64) fixation plate was fixed with two screws on both ends while a defect without fixation was set as the control. After 3 weeks, the femur bone was harvested and evaluated with scanning electron microscopy, Vickers hardness test, and X-ray diffraction analysis. Ti-64 fixation showed rapid bone formation but external callus remaining on the defect area and its surrounding bone area. This bone callus may be replaced with healed bone with the passage of time. On the other hand, control showed incomplete bone formation and bone callus formed in the area without the defect, including further regions from the defect area. This may be affected by irregular load transmission and instability around the bone defect area. We conclude that, Ti-64 fixation shows better bone formation and bone hardness than the control.