Marco Antonio Marra

Radboud University Medical Centre (Radboudumc) · Imaging, Pathology, Ophthalmology, and Radiation Oncology

The performance of military tasks is often exacerbated by additional load carriage, leading to increased physical demand. Previous studies showed that load carriage may lead to increased risk of developing musculoskeletal injuries, a reduction in task speed and mobility, and overall performance degradation. However, these studies were limited to a...

The thickness of the tibial polyethylene (PE) insert is a critical parameter to ensure optimal soft-tissue balancing in the intraoperative decision-making procedure of total knee arthroplasty (TKA). However, there is a paucity of information about the kinetic response to PE insert thickness variations in the tibiofemoral (TF) joint, and subsequentl...

Ligaments are important joint stabilizers but assessing their mechanical properties remain challenging. We developed a methodology to investigate the effects of kinematic measurement uncertainty during laxity tests on optimization-based estimation of ligament properties. We applied this methodology to a subject-specific knee model with known ligame...

Non-uniform contraction exists in many skeletal muscles and plays an important role in the function of the musculoskeletal system. Particularly in the gluteus medius (GM) muscle, its three subdivisions appear activated differently while performing various motion tasks. However, the non-uniform contractile mechanism of GM is poorly understood. In th...

Background: Persons with transfemoral amputation typically have severe muscle atrophy of the residual limb. The effect of bone-anchored prosthesis use on existing muscle atrophy is unknown. A potentially feasible method to evaluate this is magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-based three-dimensional (3D) muscle reconstruction. We aimed to (1) examine...

Purpose: When downsizing the femoral component to prevent mediolateral overhang, notching of the anterior femoral cortex may occur, which could be solved by flexing the femoral component. In this study, we investigated the effect of flexion of the femoral component on patellar tendon moment arm, patellofemoral forces and kinematics in posterior-re...

Skin-mounted marker based motion capture systems are widely used in measuring the movement of human joints. Kinematic measurements associated with skin-mounted markers are subject to soft tissue artifacts (STA), since the markers follow skin movement, thus generating errors when used to represent motions of underlying bone segments. We present a no...

Introduction Untreated unilateral developmental dysplasia of the hip (DDH) results in asymmetry of gait and hip strength and may lead to early osteoarthritis, which is commonly treated with a total hip arthroplasty (THA). There is limited knowledge about the obtained symmetry of gait and hip strength after the THA. The objectives of this cross-sect...

Baseline and strength data. (SAV)

The aim was to test whether strength per unit of muscle area (specific muscle strength) is affected in facioscapulohumeral dystrophy (FSHD) patients, as compared to healthy controls. Ten patients and ten healthy volunteers underwent an MRI examination and maximum voluntary isometric contraction measurements (MVICs) of the quadriceps muscles. Contra...

Purpose: In total knee arthroplasty (TKA), the posterior tibial slope is not always reconstructed correctly, and the knee ligaments may become too tight in flexion. To release a tight flexion gap, surgeons can increase the posterior tibial slope using two surgical resection techniques: the anterior tibial cortex (ACR) or the centre of tibial plate...

Knowing the forces in the human body is of great clinical interest and musculoskeletal models are the most commonly used tool to estimate them in vivo. Unfortunately, the process of computing muscle, joint contact and ligament forces simultaneously is computationally highly demanding. The goal of this study was to develop a fast surrogate model of...

INTRODUCTION: Tibial slope can affect the outcomes of Total Knee Arthroplasty (TKA). More posterior slope potentially helps releasing a too tight flexion gap and it is generally associated with a wider range of post-operative knee flexion. However, the mechanism by which tibial slope affects the function of TKA during dynamic activities of daily li...

INTRODUCTION: Increasing the amount of posterior tibial slope in Total Knee Arthroplasty (TKA) was suggested as a manner to release a tight flexion gap. However, an excessive tibial slope could jeopardize the knee stability in flexion. The effects of varying tibial slope on the amount of laxity of the knee joint remain unclear. The aim of this stud...

Figure S1. Bland–Altman of fascicle length measured in two different sessions for all muscles of the calf. Figure S2. Mean muscle fascicle length in dorsiflexed, neutral, and plantarflexed foot position for all muscles of the calf. Table S1. Mean fascicle length and standard deviation (SD), coefficient of variation (CV) and minimal detectable dif...

Musculoskeletal (dys-)function relies for a large part on muscle architecture which can be obtained using Diffusion-Tensor MRI (DT-MRI) and fiber trac-tography. However, reconstructed tracts often continue along the tendon or aponeurosis when using conventional methods, thus overestimating fascicle lengths. In this study, we propose a new method fo...

Introduction: Tibial slope was shown to majorly affect the outcomes of Total Knee Arthroplasty (TKA). More slope of the tibial component could help releasing a too tight flexion gap in cruciate-retaining (CR) TKA and is generally associated with a wider range of post-operative knee flexion. However, an excessive tibial slope could jeopardize the kn...

INTRODUCTION: Simultaneous prediction of body-level dynamics and detailed joint mechanics in the frame of musculoskeletal (MS) modeling represents still a highly computationally demanding task. Marra et al. (2014) recently presented and validated a MS model capable of concurrent prediction of muscle forces, knee ligament forces, tibiofemoral (TF) a...

INTRODUCTION: One of the main goals in Total Knee Arthroplasty (TKA) is to restore natural knee kinematics and physiological loads in tibiofemoral (TF) and patellofemoral (PF) joint. The extent to which this is achieved may differ substantially, depending on many factors. Adding extra flexion of the femoral component (FFC) in the sagittal plane dur...

Musculoskeletal (MS) models should be able to integrate the patient-specific MS architecture and undergo thorough validation prior to their introduction into the clinical practice. We present a streamlined methodology to develop subject-specific models able to simultaneously predict body-level dynamics, muscle forces, ligament forces, knee joint co...

Cervical spine injuries are a serious threat, as they may damage the central nervous system. In the elderly, cervical fractures due to falls are very frequent. The overall weakening of the bony and ligamentous spine decreases the resistance to fractures. Fractures of the dens of the second cervical vertebra (C2) are the most frequent individual fra...