Effect of Penetration Rate on Insertion Force in Trabecular Bone Biopsy

Bone biopsy is a common procedure in bone disease diagnoses, therapies and research. In this procedure, bone biopsy needles are inserted into bone tissues. Although needle insertion into bone is often essential for the diagnosis of bone diseases, the hard tissue-needle interactions are not quantitatively understood. In this paper, we describe a quantitative assessment of forces involved in insertion of healthy trabecular bone using clinically applied Jamshidi CrownTM bone biopsy needles of gauge 8 (4-mm diameter). The measured forces were related to the insertion depths up to 25 mm and insertion rates of 1 mm/s to 5 mm/s. At the initial insertion stage, a clear linear force-depth relation was measured. With the increase of the insertion depth, the forces increased nonlinearly. In the final stage of insertion, the forces increased much more quickly at the lower insertion rate than that at the higher insertion rate. The maximum insertion force reached approximately 1000 N when the insertion depth reached 25 mm at the insertion rate of 1 mm/s.