Interaction of ultrasound waves with bone remodelling: a multiscale computational study

  • Baron Cécile
  • Nguyen Vu-Hieu
  • Naïli Salah
  • Guivier-Curien Carine

  • Bone remodelling
  • Ultrasound stimulation
  • Osteocyte
  • Poroelasticity
  • Wall shear stress

ART

Ultrasound stimulation is thought to influence bone remodeling process. But recently, the efficiency of ultrasound therapy for bone healing has been questioned. Despite an extensive literature describing the positive effect of ultrasound on bone regenerationcell cultures, animal models, clinical studies-there are more and more reviews denouncing the inefficiency of clinical devices based on low intensity pulsed ultrasound stimulation (LIPUS) of the bone healing. One of the reasons to cause controversy comes from the persistent misunderstanding of the underlying physical and biological mechanisms of ultrasound stimulation of bone repair. As ultrasonic waves are mechanical waves, the process to be studied is the one of the mechanotransduction. Previous studies on the bone mechanotransduction have demonstrated the key-role of the osteocytes in bone mechanosensing. Osteocytes are bone cells ubiquitous inside the bone matrix, they are immersed in the interstitial fluid (IF) inside the lacuno-canalicular network (LCN). They are considered as particularly sensitive to a particular type of mechanical stress: wall shear stress on osteocytes due to the IF flow in the LCN. Inspired from these findings and observations, the