Reconstruction of a 3-D digital virtual wrist model based on CT images and anatomy

Abstract

Objective To reconstruct a 3-D digital virtual wrist model based on CT images and anatomy,to explore its feasibility and clinical application,and to provide a pre-processing morphologic moddel for wrist biomechanics analysis.Methods High resolution serial CT images of a young Chinese male volunteer's right forearm were obtained.3-D bone reconstruction was done using Mimics software,Based on wrist anatomy and available data,the triangular fibrocartilage and the important ligaments were outlined on the grey scale areas of the CT images using the 3D-Doctor software.The contours of bones,tringular fibrocartilage and ligaments were then imported into the reverse-engineering software Geomagic to integrate and register into a wrist model. Results A wrist model containing radius,ulna,metacarpals (including cortical bone,cancellous bone and medullay cavity),carpal bones,triangular fibrocartilage complex,dorsal radiocarpal,radioscaphoid,radioscaphocapitate,and radiolunate ligaments was reconstructed.The 3-D digitized measurements of the ligaments of the wrist model were consistent with the anatomical data available in the literature. Conclusion It is feasible to reconstruct a 3-D digitized virtual wrist model based on CT images and anatomy data using medical image management software.This approach may be a pre-processing technique for virtual hand finite element analysis. Key words: Carpal joints; Triangular fibrocagrtilage; Ligaments; 3D-remodeling