Original articleMechanical environment of the supraspinatus tendon: a two-dimensional finite element model analysis
Section snippets
Materials and methods
Two-dimensional finite element model analysis was performed with the software programs MENTAT (version 3.2.0; MSC Software Corporation, Tokyo, Japan) and MARC (version 3.3.0; MSC Software Corporation). The geometric shape and anatomic relationship of the supraspinatus tendon and the humeral head were determined from MR images of a right shoulder in a healthy 28-year-old woman (Figure 1). The glenohumeral joint was abducted to 0°, 30°, and 60° in the scapular plane with the subject in the
Results
The contact area between the supraspinatus tendon and the humeral head decreased as the arm was abducted, and there was no contact between them at 60° of abduction. The tensile stress and compressive stress are shown in Figure 6, Figure 7. At 0° of abduction, the tensile stress area was observed on the articular side of the supraspinatus tendon contacting the top of the humeral head, where the tensile load was tangential to the humeral head. It shifted closer to the tendon insertion as the
Strength of our model
A finite element model of the supraspinatus tendon was first reported by Luo et al.11 The geometric shape of their model was determined based on MR images obtained from a fresh cadaveric shoulder. However, they did not take the attachment structure of the tendon as well as the bony structures into consideration. In general, tendon insertion into the bone is composed of 4 zones: tendon proper, noncalcified fibrocartilage, calcified fibrocartilage, and bone. These specific structures may have
Acknowledgements
We thank Prof Hans K Uhthoff, Eiji Takaoki, Mamoru Takahashi, and Koumei Narita for their assistance.
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