Summary
Objective: Evaluation of the bending properties in one direction of three titanium polyaxial
locking plate systems.
Materials and methods: The Polyaxial Advanced Locking System (PAX®) straight plate (PAX SP), the PAX® reconstruction plate (PAX RP), and the VetLOX reconstruction plates (VetLOX) were
evaluated individually and as constructs applied to a bone model simulating a fracture
gap and compared using a two-way analysis of variance and Tukey posthoc analysis.
Results: The PAX SP had the highest values of bending stiffness, bending structural stiffness
and bending strength. When tested as plates alone, the PAX RP and VetLOX showed no
differences with regard to bending stiffness and bending structural stiffness, whilst
the PAX RP had significantly higher strength. The PAX RP construct had significantly
higher bending stiffness, bending structural stiffness and bending strength than the
VetLOX construct.
Clinical relevance: The PAX RP and VetLOX reconstruction plates are much more likely to fail when used
as bridging implants, thus adjunct support is needed. The lower bending strength of
the VetLOX reconstruction plates suggests it should not be used in fractures under
high loads.
Keywords
Polyaxial - bone plate - locking plate - fourpoint bending - titanium