Effect of Bone Loss on the Tibial Resonant Frequency: A Finite Element Study

According to the nature of the bone disorders, bone loss can happen in trabecular bone, cortical bone, or in both. It has been expected to be able to monitor the changes in tibial bone mass and stiffness by measuring its resonant frequency (1). Different noninvasive vibration techniques have been used for in-vivo measurement of tibial resonant frequency (1,6,7). However, there is a nonlinear relationship between bone mass and bone stiffness (2,3). Whenever there is a reduction in the bone mass, increasing the resonant frequency, there is also a reduction in the bone stiffness, decreasing the resonant frequency. Therefore, how changes in the bone mass can change tibial resonant frequency still needs to be clarified. The objective of this study was to perform a frequency response finite element analysis of a human tibia in order to investigate the variation of the tibial resonant frequency due to the bone loss.