MEMS Seminar: "CT-Based Structural Rigidity Fracture Risk Prediction"

Preventing fractures due to skeletal neoplasms depends on objective criteria that reflect the interaction of the tumor with the host bone. Clinicians make subjective assessments regarding a patient's fracture risk and response to treatment based on plain radiographs and clinical symptoms now recognized to be inaccurate. Metastatic cancer alters both the material and geometric properties of the bone; failure to account for changes in both of these parameters limits the accuracy of these fracture predictions. Rigidity is the structural property that integrates both the material and geometric properties of the bone; the axial (EA), bending (EI), and torsional (GJ) rigidity determine the capacity of the bone to resist axial, bending and twisting loads respectively.

Dr. Snyder is a Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery, Harvard Medical School and Research Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University School of Engineering. As a Board Certified Pediatric Orthopaedic surgeon on staff at Boston Children's Hospital, he co-directs the Cerebral Palsy Center and supervises the Spinal Muscle Atrophy Clinic. His clinical practice focuses on treating congenital and acquired deformities about the hip, spine and appendicular skeleton as a consequence of neuromuscular disease and pediatric trauma.

Lunch will be served at 11:30 am.
Hosted by Dr. Dan Buckland.