Finite element study of healthy, pathological and surgical lumbar spine biomechanics

Lumbar pain is one of the most common problems of population. Far too often it is caused by ageing and degeneration of intervertebral discs (IVD). Fusion techniques, as arthrodesis, were the first surgeries used to avoid lumbar pathologies. However, arthrodesis reduced dramatically the spine movement. So the aim of this work was to study numerically how different pathologies affect lumbar spine biomechanics. Different intervertebral disc cages insertion (arthoplasty) were analysed and compared with healthy and pathological results.