Modeling of an initial stage of bone fracture healing

Abstract

In case of the secondary bone fracture healing, four characteristic steps are often distinguished. Thefirst stage, hematoma and clot formation, which is an object of our study, is important because it preparesthe environment for the following stages. In this work, a new mathematical model describing basic effectspresent short after the injury is proposed. The main idea is based on the assumption that blood leaking fromthe ruptured blood vessels propagates into a poroelastic saturated tissue close to the fracture and mixes withthe interstitial liquid present in pores. After certain time period from the first contact with surrounding tissue,the solidification of blood in the fluid mixture starts. This results in clot formation. By assuming the timenecessary to initiate solidification and critical saturation of blood in the mixture, the shape and the structure ofblood clot could be determined. In numerical example, proposed mathematical formulas were used to studythe size of the gap between fractured parts and its effect in blood clot formation.