An Alternative Coating Technique To Strengthen Pin-Bone Interface Stresses For External Fracture Fixation: A Preliminary Study

This study is focusing on applying hydroxyapatite in order to produce stronger pin-bone attachments for tibial external fixation. There will be two sets of fixation being set up. The first set will be using hydroxyapatite coated pins and the second one will only use uncoated pins as a control parameter. The strength of the pin-bone interface stresses will be measured using insertion and extraction torque. Finite element analysis is going to be applied on both fixation models to investigate the local bone stresses. Hydroxyapatite coating of external fixation pins will improve the rigidity of the fractured bone while treatment and thus solve the pin loosening and infection problems.