A quantitative biomechanical study for precise orthopedic intervention in idiopathic scoliosis

The scoliosis with a prevalence of about 2.4% has become the top 3 major “killer” of children and adolescents’ health. Only 0.02% of scoliosis would be severe enough to require surgical intervention, while the rest was treated with orthotics or exercise training. However, the location of the orthotic forces and its effects were still not clear, resulting in a great deal of blindness in the fabrication of precise individualized orthoses and the later applied orthopedic forces. In this paper, we built a 3D spine model of a patient with idiopathic scoliosis based on CT tomography data, applied different orthopedic forces to the spine model to compare the results and clarify the relationship between them in order to determine the optimal location and magnitude of the orthopedic force, which were necessary for precise interventions in patients. The present results showed that 1) the greater the applied force, the better the correction effect (within reasonable limits) and 2) the effect of multiple forces applied for correction was better than that of a single force applied, as reflected by a greater displacement of the vertebrae and almost identical mean Von Mises stress in the discs, which could support the production of effective personalized orthopedic robots.