On Stress Driven Diffusion in Bone -- An Experimental Study

TL;DR

This experimental study investigates how static mechanical stress influences the transport of iodine within bovine bone tissue, revealing that stress may affect nutrient diffusion and distribution in bone.

Contribution

It provides preliminary experimental evidence linking mechanical stress to nutrient transport behavior in bone tissue, using x-ray imaging and numerical analysis.

Findings

Iodine distribution is affected by mechanical load.

Stress influences the transport of nutrients in bone.

Iodine serves as an effective contrast agent in x-ray imaging.

Abstract

Abstract The transport of nutrients or signal constituents that stimulate growth of bone tissue is supposed to be affected by a static mechanical load. It follows from basic thermodynamical principles that constituents causing volumetric change are dragged along the gradients of hydrostatic stress. The present preliminary study examines the behaviour of iodine present in the medullary cavity of a bovine long bone exposed to mechanical load. A section of the bone is x-ray scanned with the static load present, with and without the iodine. The resulting distribution in a selected 2D plane is numerically evaluated using a discrete Radon's inverse transform. The result suggests that iodine is a useful constituent with a good attenuation effect on the x-ray beam and clearly reveals the temporal distribution of its transport through the bone. It further result shows some indication that stress does affect the iodine distribution.