Simulated lesions representative of metastatic disease predict proximal femur failure strength more accurately than idealized lesions

Metastatic disease in bone is characterized by highly amorphous and variable lesion geometry, with increased fracture risk. Assumptions of idealized lesion geometry made in previous finite element (FE) studies of metastatic disease in the proximal femur may not sufficiently capture effects of local stress/strain concentrations on predicted failure strength. The goal of this study was to develop and validate a FE failure model of the proximal...