Research On Sclerotin Transfer And Mechanical Properties Of Oa Rabbit Femur While Treating With Uyghur Sand Therapy

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a chronic, degenerative, progressive joint disease which isvery common in the elderly population. Currently there is no effective cure for thedisease at home and abroad, long-term managing with drug and non-drug treatmentsto relieve the pain is mainstream in clinics. While Uygur sand therapy is also anadjunct treatment, it caused a lot of attention and promotion of patients. Large numberof clinical practice has proved that Uyghur sand therapy has a significant effect tovarious types of arthritic diseases, especially in the efficacy of rheumatoid arthritisand osteoarthritis is quite obvious. In this paper, from the perspective of biomechanicschanges in animal model of OA while the process of sand therapy is researched.Firstly, based on preliminary studies the New Zeeland adult rabbits were chosenas experimental subjects, and after the establishment of OA model they wererandomly divided into two groups, sand treatment group and the control group (8rabbits in each group). The sand treatment group was treated with sand therapy in theindoor sand treatment laboratory, while the control group did not carry out anytherapeutic intervention. Meanwhile femurs of the two groups of rabbits were scannedwith CT for four times (before the OA model were established, after the establishmentof OA model,14thday of sand treatment and28thday of sand treatment). The volumesof sclerotin layers (spongy bone, compact bone and enamel bone) and the change ofthe proportion of each sclerotin layers in femur were calculated according to the CTdata. The result showed that cancellous bone was decreased while compact bone andenamel bone were gradually increased in the sand treatment group, on the contrary itwas just opposite in the control group, and the difference between two groups wassignificant (P <0.05).Secondly, three-point flexural test was conducted to the femur specimens andobtained load-displacement curve after the sand therapy. The basic mechanical properties of the femur like maximum load, maximum normal stress, elastic modulus,structural stiffness were calculated. Through statistical analysis it was found that themechanical properties of sand treatment group was stronger than control group, andthere is a significant difference (P <0.05). According to the data from sclerotin layerand mechanical properties, it can be conclude that the sand treatment for OA rabbitmodel had a significant effect on bone metabolism, namely can promote osteobla’sfunction while the osteoclast’s function decline. Thus, the bone tissues weretransferred from cancellous bone into the cortical bone and enamel bone whichpossesses higher strength and stiffness, along with that mechanical properties offemur were increased.Finally, through the CT data3D geometric model of rabbit femur was built, afteroptimizing the finite element model of it was established, and according to therelationship between bone density and elastic modulus,22kinds of linear elasticmaterials were assigned to the femur. Through finite element analysis method thethree-point flexural test was simulated on rabbit femur model, the simulation resultscoincide with the experimental results. This method provides guidance and referencefor the evaluation of the mechanical properties of human bone mode l, and alsoprovides a scientific basis for verifying the efficacy of Uyghur sand therapy on humanosteoarthritis in the latter study.