An ultrasonic pulse-echo technique for monitoring the setting of CaSO4-based bone cement.

We present a new ultrasonic technique for monitoring the entire setting process of injectable bone cement. The problem with existing standards is their subjectivity. Because of this the results are not comparable between different research groups. A strong advantage with the proposed technique is that it is non-invasive and non-destructive, since no manipulation of the cement sample is needed once the measurement has started. Furthermore, the results are reproducible with small variations. The testing was performed on calcium sulfate cement using an ultrasonic pulse-echo approach. The results show that the acoustic properties of the cement are strongly correlated with the setting time, the density, and the adiabatic bulk modulus. The measured initial and final setting times agree well with the Gillmore needles standard. An important difference compared to the standards, is that the technique presented here allows the user to follow the entire setting process on-line. Copyright 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd.