ABSTRACT
Prostheses are proposed to restore the spinal stability of patients suffering from metastatic malignant tumours in their vertebral bodies. They are designed to replace only one vertebral body and two neighbouring intervertebral discs of the spine. Experiments performed on cervical, thoracic and lumbar sections, which were obtained from fresh cadavers, have shown that the reduction in average compressive strengths of these regions due to the placement of prostheses is about 9%. This seems acceptable for those patients in performing their daily activities. The same amount of reduction has also been observed in average compressive strengths of the neighbouring healthy vertebrae due to the placement of prosthesis heads by bone cement. Developed prostheses have a number of advantages over the existing fusion constructs for the cases considered in this work.
