Bone Trabecula Surface Reconstruction for Cranium Scaffold in Bone Tissue Engineering

Abstract

In bone tissue engineering, the scaffold architecture is very important for cell growth, it is better to make it similar with the native bone trabecula. To imitate the nature bone morphology, this paper presents a 3D reconstruction method of bone trabecula surface for cranium scaffold. Firstly, a native human cranium specimen on forehead was scanned by micro CT equipment and a set of gray level images were obtained. Then through image denoising, image enhancement, contour extraction and triangular surface reconstruction, the 3D structure of the specimen and its internal bone trabecula were reconstructed successfully. Lastly, to evaluate the feasibility of the method, a biomaterial scaffold case was fabrication using lost-foam casting technology. Results shown that the bone trabecula architecture in the scaffold is best retained and the porous structure is highly similar with the native specimen. This reconstructions process is simple and objective, which provide a new way for clinic cranium restoration.