MODELING MICRO-SCAFFOLD-BASED IMPLANTS FOR BONE TISSUE ENGINEERING

• US 20110022174A1
• Filed: 01/11/2009
• Published: 01/27/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 01/11/2008
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: TECHNION RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT FOUNDATION, LTD.
• Original Assignee: UAB Research Foundation (University of Alabama System)
• Inventors: Fischer, Anat, Holdstein, Yaron
• Application Number:
  US12/812,283
• Publication Number:
  US 20110022174A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 623/16.11
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 17/20 Finite element generation, e.g. wire-frame surface description, tesselation
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2210/41 Medical

Abstract

A new conceptual biomedical method is presented for designing scaffold-based bone implants and using these implants in treating deteriorated bones. These implants have micro-architectural bone structures that are capable of mimicking the stochastic micro-structure as in natural bone bio-mineral structures. Moreover, they can be adapted as specific tailor-made compatible bone-repair mediator implants to be used as effective substitutes for natural damaged bone fracture structures.

Claims

1. A method for modeling micro-scaffold-based implants for engineering of bone tissue comprising:

identifying stochastic sampled pattern in the bone tissue;

developing 3D synthesis for said stochastic sampled pattern so as to establish an implant model;

optimizing said implant model based on mechanical constraints;

merging said implant model with the bone tissue.

2. The method as claimed in claim 1, further comprising:

detecting 3D holes in the bone tissue.

3. A method as claimed in claim 2, wherein detecting 3D holes comprises:

scanning medical model of the bone tissue;

extracting 3D micro-structure image from the bone tissue.

4. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein said developing 3D synthesis for said stochastic sampled pattern comprising:

reconstructing a 3D triangular mesh image out of a set of slice-by-slice 2D digitized images;

analyzing said 3D triangular mesh image to evaluate the quality of the mesh;

extracting 3D holes from said 3D triangular mesh image;

determining 3D sampled patterns based on geometric criteria and topological criteria of surroundings of said 3D holes;

adaptively fitting said 3D sampled patterns to said 3D holes;

optimizing a texture by mechanical criteria exerted on said bone tissue.

5. The method as claimed in claim 4, wherein said extracting 3D holes from said 3D triangular mesh image comprises identifying cavities representing said 3D holes by setting up a predetermined size threshold wherein a size of each of said 3D holes is compared to said predetermined size threshold and wherein if a volume of a cavity of said cavities is larger than said predetermined size threshold, said cavity is defined as a hole.

6. The method as claimed in claim 4, wherein said adaptively fitting said 3D sampled patterns to said 3D holes comprises seamlessly in-filling said 3D holes according to said 3D sampled patterns so that a resulting mesh appears as a single continuous 3D structure.

7. The method as claimed in claim 4, wherein said determining 3D sampled patterns comprises searching an appropriate pattern in said 3D triangular mesh image wherein said appropriate pattern best fits the 3D hole according to geometric analysis both on said appropriate pattern and on the 3D hole.

8. The method as claimed in claim 4, wherein said determining 3D sampled patterns comprises searching an appropriate pattern in said 3D triangular mesh image wherein said appropriate pattern best fits the 3D hole according to topological analysis both on said appropriate pattern and on the 3D hole.

9. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein said developing 3D synthesis comprises for each voxel in a synthesized mesh:

getting a cubic region Reg_i from the synthesized mesh, centered at V_i;

getting a cubic region Reg_j from a sample mesh, centered at V_j;

defining a measured distance d_ij, between Reg_i and Reg_j, such that d_ij=d(Reg_i, Reg_j);

creating a set {Reg_j} having a good correlation with Reg_i;

selecting Reg_j with a highest correlation from the set {Reg_j} and

assigning its center voxel value V_j to the voxel V_i in the synthesized mesh.

10. The method as claimed in claim 9, further comprising integrating a mask containing geometric features in high contrast.

11. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein said developing 3D synthesis comprises

for each voxel in a synthesized mesh wherein an input is a cubic region Reg_i from the synthesized mesh that defines a hole, centered at V_i.:

getting a cubic region Reg_j from the sample mesh, centered at V_j;

defining a measure distance d_jj, between Reg_i and Reg_j, such that d_ij=d(Reg_i, Reg_j);

creating a set {Reg_j} having good correlation with Reg_i;

selecting Reg_j with the highest correlation from the set {Reg_i};

copying {Reg_j} to the synthesized mesh.

12. The method as claimed in claim 1, further comprising adding parameters characterizing the bone.

13. The method as claimed in claim 12, wherein said parameters are selected from a group of parameters such as bone density and directionality.

14. A reconstructed implant to be filled within a hole in a fractured or diseased bone that is designed according to the method claimed in claim 1.

15. The reconstructed implant as claimed in claim 14, wherein said implant fills in the hole in a seamless manner.