Bone cement modeling for percutaneous vertebroplasty

Vertebroplasty procedures provide a significant benefit for patients suffering from vertebral fractures. In order to address current issues of vertebroplasty procedures, an injection device able to control the bone cement viscosity has been developed. In addition, this device allows to protect the practitioner by removing him/her from the X-rays area. In this context, a study is first proposed to quantify the bone cement viscosity during its polymerization reaction on a rotational rheometer. These experimental measurements have led to the identification of a complete behavior law that takes into account the simultaneous effects of shear rate, time, and temperature. Based on this preliminary study, this article finally aims to prove the ability of estimating the viscosity of the flowing bone cement on the developed injection system. A final set of experiments validates that the injection device dedicated to vertebroplasty procedures can control the flowing bone cement viscosity by acting on the temperature. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res Part B: Appl Biomater 107B: 1504-1515, 2019.