Abstract
Intervertebral disc (IVD) is the largest avascular structure in the human body and nutrition supply into IVD is mainly through diffusion from the peripheral blood vessels. Poor nutrition supply to the disc is believed to be one of the causes for disc degeneration. While many studies have aimed at studying and analyzing the effect of mechanical loading on water content, chemical composition, and nutritional levels in IVD [1–3], no study has been reported to investigate the effect of mechanical compression on oxygen diffusion in the IVD tissue. The objective of this study was to determine oxygen diffusivity in annulus fibrosus (AF) samples under different levels of compression.