A biomechanical study of T12-L2 in thoracolumbar region of spine affected by tuberculosis

Pott's disease or tuberculosis spondylitis is the occurrence of tuberculosis in spine. It is caused by mycobacterium tuberculosis. Due to this infection vertebral compression fracture occurs leading to collapse of the vertebral column resulting in kyphosis. Tuberculosis mostly affects the thoracolumbar region (T12-L2) of spine. Several minimally invasive surgeries are available to treat the fractured vertebra. After the treatment subsequent adjacent fractures occur in certain people. This study deals with the biomechanical behavior of tuberculosis affected vertebrae after fracture. The surface model of T12-L2 spine segment of the thoracolumbar region is to be segmented from CT scan data of a healthy subject using MIMICS. The obtained surface model is meshed and analysis is carried out using Ansys and validated with literature. The validated model is modified to tuberculosis condition to study the biomechanical behaviour of affected vertebrae in comparing with healthy model.