ASSESSING ACETABULAR COMPONENT ORIENTATION FROM CONVENTIONAL POST-OP RADIOGRAPHS

Introduction Proper acetabular component orientation is an important part of successful total hip replacement surgery. Poorly positioned implants can lead to early complications, such as dislocation. Mal-positioned acetabular components can also generate increase wear debris due to edge loading which can cause pre-mature loosening. It is essential to be able to measure post-operative implant orientation accurately to assure that implants are positioned properly. It is difficult and potentially inaccurate to manually measure implant orientation on a post-op radiograph. This is particularly true for the immediate post-op radiograph where the patient is not as well aligned relative to the x-ray beam. However, the best time to determine if an acetabular component is mal-aligned is immediately following surgery so the patient could be taken back to the OR for immediate revision. Taking post-op CT scans is expensive and subjects the patient to increased radiation exposure, so using CT post-operatively is not done routinely. With the increased use of robotics and computer navigation at surgery there are often pre-op CT scans for total hip replacement patients. Current radiological tools do not take advantage of this pre-op CT scan for assessment of acetabular component orientation. A new software module for Mimics medical imaging software (Materialise, Leuven, Belgium) is able to overlay 3D CT data onto radiographs. We used this x-ray module to see if we could measure acetabular component orientation using the pre-op CT scan and the routine post-op x-ray that is taken immediately following total hip arthroplasty at our institution. Methods From a prior study, we had pre-op, and post-op CT scans of a group of twenty patients who received a total hip replacement. The post-op scan was used to measure the actual acetabular component orientation, both inclination and anteversion (Figure 1). We then measured component orientation using only the pre-op CT scan and the initial post-op x-ray using the Mimics x-ray module. We created a 3D model of the pelvis from the pre-op CT using Mimics. Then, the x-ray module was used to import the post-op radiograph into the Mimics file. Using the software, the x-ray was registered to the pre-op 3D pelvis. A 3D .stl file of the acetabular component used at surgery was then imported into the Mimics file and also registered according to the post-op radiograph (Figures 2 and 3). Once the cup and pelvis were both registered to the post-op radiograph, they were exported as .stl files and the acetabular anteversion and inclination were measured using the same method we used for the post-op scan. We then compared the results of our measurements from the post-op 3D reconstruction to the 2D overlay method to determine the accuracy of this new measurement technique. Results The average error for anteversion and inclination was 1.5±1.5 and −0.8±1.6 degrees respectively. Maximum error for anteversion and inclination was 5.7 and −5.0 degrees respectively. Conclusion The x-ray module could be a powerful tool in the assessment of post-operative orientation of the acetabular component in total hip arthroplasty.