Surgical Design Optimization of Proximal Junctional Kyphosis

Figure 2

Illustration of the biomechanical analysis process. (a) Blue rectangle means the upper instrumented vertebra (UIV), the red one is UIV + 1, and the green one is UIV + 2. (b) In the mesh data of segmented cephalad intervertebral disc of UIV, light red indicates nucleus, and dark red demonstrates anulus fibrosus; white solid lines in an enlarger X-ray represent the inferior endplate of UIV and the superior endplate of two cephalad vertebrae, respectively, and the angle formed by the intersection of them is the proximal junctional angle (PJA, α). (c) Loading force calculated in the previous stage on the segmented vertebra by Altair OptiStruct. (d) F, anulus fibrosus; N, nucleus; A, anterior; P, posterior; R, right; L, left.