Towards a Transferable Modeling Method of the Knee to Distinguish Between Future Healthy Joints from Osteoarthritic Joints: Data from the Osteoarthritis Initiative

• Published in: Annals of biomedical engineering 2023-10, Vol.51 (10), p.2192-2203
• Main Authors: Paz, Alexander, García, José J., Korhonen, Rami K., Mononen, Mika E.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Arthritis; Biochemistry; Biological and Medical Physics; Biomechanics; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering; Biomedicine; Biophysics; Cartilage; Cartilage diseases; Classical Mechanics; Computer applications; Computer simulation; Constitutive models; Degeneration; Finite element method; Joints (anatomy); Knee; Mathematical models; Modelling; Original; Original Article; Osteoarthritis
• ISSN: 0090-6964; 1573-9686
• DOI: 10.1007/s10439-023-03252-8

Computational models can be used to predict the onset and progression of knee osteoarthritis. Ensuring the transferability of these approaches among computational frameworks is urgent for their reliability. In this work, we assessed the transferability of a template-based modeling strategy, based on the finite element (FE) method, by implementing it on two different FE softwares and comparing their results and conclusions. For that, we simulated the knee joint cartilage biomechanics of 154 knees using healthy baseline conditions and predicted the degeneration that occurred after 8 years of follow-up. For comparisons, we grouped the knees using their Kellgren–Lawrence grade at the 8-year follow-up time and the simulated volume of cartilage tissue that exceeded age-dependent thresholds of maximum principal stress. We considered the medial compartment of the knee in the FE models and used ABAQUS and FEBio FE softwares for simulations. The two FE softwares detected different volumes of overstressed tissue in corresponding knee samples ( p