Surface-based determination of the pelvic coordinate system

Abstract

In total hip replacement (THR) one technical factor influencing the risk of dislocation is cup orientation. Computer-assisted surgery systems allow for cup navigation in anatomy-based reference frames. The pelvic coordinate system most used for cup navigation in THR is based on the mid-sagittal plane (MSP) and the anterior pelvic plane (APP). From a geometrical point of view, the MSP can be considered as a mirror plane, whereas the APP can be considered as a tangent plane comprising the anterior superior iliac spines (ASIS) and the pubic tubercles. In most systems relying on the pelvic coordinate system, the most anterior points of the ASIS and the pubic tubercles are selected manually. As manual selection of landmark points is a tedious, time-consuming and error-prone task, a surface-based approach for combined MSP and APP computation is presented in this paper: Homologous points defining the MSP and the landmark points defining the APP are selected automatically from surface patches. It is investigated how MSP computation can benefit from APP computation and vice versa, and clinical perspectives of combined MSP and APP computation are discussed. Experimental results on computed tomography data show that the surface-based approach can improve accuracy.