Abstract

Fatigue or stress fractures are an important clinical problem in humans as well as racehorses. An important question in this context is, when a bone experiences. fa!igue damage ~uring e~treme use, how much is it weakened compared to its original state? Since there are very ltmtted data on thts quesuon and stress fractures are common in racehorses, we sought to determine the effect of fatigue loading on the monotonic l:trength of equine cortical bone. Beams were machined from the dorsal, medial and lateral cortices of the third metacarpal bones of six thoroughbred racehorses. Beams from left and right bones were assigned to control and fatigue groups. respectively (N- 18 each). The fatigue group was cyclicully loaded in three-point bending at 2Hz for 100,000 cycles at 0- 5000 microstrain while submerged in saline at 37°C. These beams. as well as those in the control group. were then monotonically loaded to failure in three-point bending. The monotonic load-deflection curves were analyzed for differences using three-factor (fatigue loading, ~natotni~ region. and horse)_ analysis o_f variance .. The mean failure load was 3% less in the fatigue group, but thts reduction was only margmally stgmficant. Netther elastic modulus nor yield strength was significantly affected by the fatigue loading. The principal effects of fatigue loading were on post-yield behavior (yield being based on a 0.02% offset criter!on). The work don~ and the load increase between yield and failure were both significantly reduced. All the vanables except post-yteld deflecuon were significantly affected by anatomic region. In summary, loading equivalent to a lifetime of racing does not significantly weaken equine cortical bone ex vivo. The clinical implication of this may be that the biological repair of fatigue damage can actually contribute to stress fracture if pressed too far.

Disciplines

Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering

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URL: https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/bmed_fac/67