Finite Element Analysis of Osteotomy Treatment for Kienbock’s Disease

Abstract

Lateral closing wedge osteotomy is a treatment for Kienbock’s disease. It is one of the most frequently used treatment options, which has been reported with relatively good long-term results. However, the results about the treatment are still controversial in some literatures and some key mechanisms are still not clear. The objective of the cur-rent study was to study the biomedical mechanism of the treatment. A finite element model was developed based on the geometry of carpal bones. Various situations in-cluding inclination angle changes by cutting the radial with 0?, 5?, 10? and 15? osteot-omy angles were studied. The effectiveness of the treatment was also studied for the carpal structure with abnormal positions of the lunate bone. The results show that the effectiveness of the stress reduction with the angle depends on many situations such as the initial morphology of the carpal structure.