A semi-automated method for measuring femoral shape to derive version and its comparison with existing methods

The measurement of femoral version is important in surgical planning of derotational osteotomies particularly for patients with proximal femoral deformity. It is, however, difficult to measure version accurately and differences of 10° to 15° have been found between repeated measurements. The aim of this work was first to develop a method of measuring femoral version angle where the definition of the neck axis is based on the three-dimensional point cloud making up the neck, second to automate many of the processes involved thus reducing the influence of human error and third to ensure the method could run on freely available software suitable for most computer platforms. A CT scan was performed on 44 cadaveric femurs to generate point clouds of the femoral surfaces. The point clouds were then analysed semi-automatically to determine femoral version angle between a neck axis defined by the bone surface points belonging only to the neck and a femoral condylar axis. The results from the neck fitting method were compared against three other methods typically used in the clinic (Murphy, Reikeras and Lee methods). Version angle measured by the new method gave 19.1° ± 7.3° (mean ± standard deviation) for the set of cadaveric femurs, 3.5° lower than the Murphy method and 6.8° and 11.0° higher than the Reikeras and Lee 2D methods respectively. The results demonstrate a method of measuring femoral version angle incorporating a high level of automation running on free software.