Biomechanical Analysis of Posterior Ligaments of Cervical Spine and Laminoplasty

Abstract

Cervical laminoplasty is a valuable procedure for myelopathy but it is associated with complications such as increased kyphosis. The effect of ligament damage during cervical laminoplasty on biomechanics is not well understood. We developed the C2–C7 cervical spine finite element model and simulated C3–C6 double-door laminoplasty. Three models were created (a) intact, (b) laminoplasty-pre (model assuming that the ligamentum flavum (LF) between C3–C6 was preserved during surgery), and (c) laminoplasty-res (model assuming that the LF between C3–C6 was resected during surgery). The models were subjected to physiological loading, and the range of motion (ROM), intervertebral nucleus stress, and facet contact forces were analyzed under flexion/extension, lateral bending, and axial rotation. The maximum change in ROM was observed under flexion motion. Under flexion, ROM in the laminoplasty-pre model increased by 100.2%, 111.8%, and 98.6% compared to the intact model at C3–C4, C4–C5, and C5–C6, respectively. The ROM in laminoplasty-res further increased by 105.2%, 116.8%, and 101.8% compared to the intact model at C3–C4, C4–C5, and C5–C6, respectively. The maximum stress in the annulus/nucleus was observed under left bending at the C4–C5 segment where an increase of 139.5% and 229.6% compared to the intact model was observed for laminoplasty-pre and laminoplasty-res model, respectively. The highest facet contact forces were observed at C4–C5 under axial rotation, where an increase of 500.7% and 500.7% was observed compared to the intact model for laminoplasty-pre and laminoplasty-res, respectively. The posterior ligaments of the cervical spine play a vital role in restoring/stabilizing the cervical spine. When laminoplasty is performed, the surgeon needs to be careful not to injure the posterior soft tissue, including ligaments such as LF.

The Biomechanical Analysis of Jumping Difficulty Movement in National Traditional Sports

“…In this study, when taking three steps up, the moment when the athlete swings the leg to the highest center of gravity in the third step was taken as the starting moment, and the moment when the take-off leg kicked off the ground was taken as the end point, and the process was defined as the take-off stage. e single-leg support stage is from the starting time to the time when the take-off leg touches the ground, the double-foot support stage is from the time when the take-off leg touches the ground to the time when the swing leg leaves the ground, and the single-leg stretch stage is from the time when the swing leg leaves the ground to the time when the take-off leg leaves the ground [20].…”

Investigation into Cervical Spine Biomechanics Following Single, Multilevel and Hybrid Disc Replacement Surgery with Dynamic Cervical Implant and Fusion: A Finite Element Study

“…The meshed vertebrae and intervertebral discs were exported to ABAQUS software (ABAQUS ® , Version 6.10-2; Abaqus, Inc., Providence, RI, USA) for FE analysis. To model the behavior of ligaments, 3D truss elements in Abaqus software were used to simulate the nonlinear behavior of ligaments under tensile forces [ 17 , 18 ]. The 3D tension-only truss elements were used to model the five cervical ligaments, i.e., the anterior longitudinal ligament (ALL), the posterior longitudinal ligament (PLL), the capsular ligament (CL), the ligamentum flavum (LF), and the interspinous ligament (ISL).…”

Total disc replacement alters the biomechanics of cervical spine based on sagittal cervical alignment: A finite element study

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