Monitoring the healing of a tibial osteotomy in the XXXX treated with external fixation.

@entity4957 @entity2003 @entity95 @entity174
@entity174 site @entity2003 was monitored non-destructively at weekly intervals during healing of @entity4957 in adult @entity95 . Two groups of 20 @entity95 each were treated with external fixators of two different @entity2003 . Four animals from each group were killed at 3, 5, 6, 7, and 8 weeks to determine the bending moments at failure of the healing @entity174 . Normal @entity174 healing was accompanied by characteristic phases in the development of @entity174 site @entity2003 . From 0 to 3 weeks there was a period of low and approximately constant @entity2003 , followed by a linear increase during 3 to 5 weeks to an approximately three to four times greater @entity2003 . The maximum average normalized axial @entity2003 were reached at 6 weeks and were 57% ( @entity2003 group) and 77% ( @entity2003 group) of the untreated contralateral controls. The maximum average normalized failure moments occurred at 8 weeks and were 48% ( @entity2003 ) and 44% ( @entity2003 ) of controls. The differences due to fixator @entity2003 were not statistically significant except for a large increase in failure moments at 3 weeks for the @entity2003 group. @entity2003 were correlated (r2 = 0.74 and 0.53, respectively) with failure moments, but only during the first 6 weeks. The monitoring technique provides a nondestructive means for following the biomechanical progress of @entity174 healing in an animal model. The occurrence of the characteristic increase in @entity174 site @entity2003 at 3 to 5 weeks can also be used to distinguish between normal and abnormal healing.
