An ultrasonic through-transmission technique for monitoring the setting of injectable calcium phosphate cement.

An ultrasound through-transmission method to monitor the setting process of injectable calcium phosphate bone cements in body fluids is presented. This method can be used to determine the acoustic properties of the bone cement as it sets, which are linked to its material properties and provide some information about changes occurring within the cement. The development of the methodology of ultrasonic testing and execution of velocity measurements of the longitudinal and transverse waves using the through-transmission method made it possible to determine the material constants of samples during the setting and hardening process of an injectable cement paste in physiological fluids (i.e. the Young's modulus (E), the Poisson ratio (ν) and the shear modulus (G)), and to determine the degree of anisotropy of wave velocity in the samples. A strong advantage of the proposed method is that it is non-destructive, and the same sample can be used to monitor the whole process of the cement setting. The testing was performed on premixed and injectable calcium phosphate (CPC)/chitosan blend, where glycerol was used as a liquid phase. Comparisons between ultrasonic velocity and empirical tests such as compressive strength, porosity measurement, FTIR, SEM and XRD analysis at different days of immersion in Ringer's solutions showed that the ultrasonic velocity can be very useful to provide in situ information about changes occurring within the cement.