Improved method for planning intramedullary guiding rod entry point in total knee arthroplasty
Xiao, J., Wang, C., Zhu, L. et al.Knee
Background
To study the accuracy of using the deepest point of the intercondylar notch (DPIN) as a reference point for femoral intramedullary (IM) guiding rod entrance in total knee arthroplasty (TKA) with 3-D reconstruction in Chinese subjects.
Methods
A total of 50 normal femurs in 25 Chinese subjects (mean age 25.6 ± 2.9 years; range 18–29 years) were chosen from the lower extremities computed tomography digital imaging and communications in medicine (DICOM) database for this study. The DICOM data were imported into Mimics 10.0 software. A cylinder (radius = 4 mm; length = 20 cm) was used to simulate ideal insertion of a IM guiding rod into the femoral canal. DPIN was taken as a reference point for calculating the relative position of the rod’s entry point.
Results
The mean rod entry point position in the coronal plane was 2.94 ± 1.12 mm (range 0.79–4.91 mm) medial and 6.01 ± 2.09 mm (range 2.49–9.51 mm) anterior to the DPIN, with no significant difference between sides. All potential angle errors were below 2°.
Conclusion
The results of this study show that the DPIN can serve as a reference for surgeons using an IM guide system in TKA.
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