Human vertebral column is a crucial part of the human body that gives it the required articulations and its function of protecting the spinal cord. The vertebral column provides attachments to muscles, supports the trunk, protects the spinal cord and nerve roots and serves as a site for haemopoiesis. Finite-element models are used to investigate the biomechanics of normal, diseased and surgically fused spines. Generally, nominal spine geometries (coresponding to 50th percentile of a population) are used to understand biomechanics. The need for developing patient-specific lumbar spine models has been acknowledged and few literatures report an attempt to develop the same. In the current study, a comprehensive lumbar spine (T12- Sacrum) is developed using a technique that facilitates geometrical morphing so as to incorporate patient-specific morphologies into the model. The developed model shall used to analysie biomechanically a lumbar spine fusion procedure specific to the patients. A special vertebral fusion surgical technique that was found to be clinically beneficial to the patients in terms of minimal invasiveness, maximum soft tissue retention causing least discomfort to patients, developed at CMC Vellore, INDIA shall be investigated from biomechanical perspective using computer simulations in this study. This surgical technique would be compared with other relevant fusion surgeries. The observations in the study could potentially provide decision support to the surgeons in terms of the suitability of the surgical procedure for a given patient morphology.

Keywords:
Lumbar spine finite element model, Range of motion, Inter vertebral rotation, Disc compression, Morphological mesh model, T12-Sacrum model