Mechanical behavior of metastatic vertebrae are influenced by tissue architecture, mineral content, and organic feature alterations.

Diminished vertebral mechanical behavior with metastatic involvement is typically attributed to modified architecture and trabecular bone content. Previous work has identified organic and mineral phase bone quality changes in the presence of metastases, yet limited work exists on the potential influence of such tissue level modifications on vertebral mechanical characteristics. This work seeks to determine correlations between features of bone (structural and tissue level) and mechanical behavior in metastatically involved vertebral bone. It is hypothesized that tissue level properties (mineral and organic) will improve these correlations beyond architectural properties and BMD alone. Twenty-four female athymic rats were inoculated with HeLa or Ace-1 cancer cells lines producing osteolytic (N = 8) or mixed (osteolytic/osteoblastic, N = 7) metastases, respectively. Twenty-one days post-inoculation L1-L3 pathologic vertebral motion segments were excised and μCT imaged. 3D morphometric parameters and axial rigidity of the L2 vertebrae were quantified. Sequential loading and μCT imaging measured progression of failure, stiffness and peak force. Relationships between mechanical testing (whole bone and tissue-level) and tissue-level material property modifications with metastatic involvement were evaluated utilizing linear regression models. Osteolytic involvement reduced vertebral trabecular bone volume, structure, CT-derived axial rigidity, stiffness and failure force compared to healthy controls (N = 9). Mixed metastases demonstrated similar trends. Previously assessed collagen cross-linking and proline-based residues were correlated to mechanical behavior and improved the predictive ability of the regression models. Similarly, collagen organization improved predictive regression models for metastatic bone hardness. This work highlights the importance of both bone content/architecture and organic tissue-level features in characterizing metastatic vertebral mechanics.