Figure 7

Sequential stiffness measurement. Increase of callus bending stiffness versus healing time of all sheep. From the third week on, fracture stiffness is obviously increasing. All stiffness values at ten weeks were obtained from four-point-bending tests in a material testing machine. Note that the curves of the in-vivo-measurements closely correspond to the more accurate ex vivo measurements obtained from the 4-point-bending test. In those sheep where progressive pin loosening was evident, the data points were omitted.