Independent Evaluation of a Mechanical Hip Socket Navigation System in Total Hip Arthroplasty

Acetabular cup malpositioning during total hip arthroplasty may lead to impingement, instability, wear-induced osteolysis, and increased rates of revision surgery. The purpose of this study was to independently evaluate the accuracy of acetabular cup orientation using a novel mechanical navigation device.

An adjustable, reusable mechanical navigation device was used in a consecutive series of patients. Angles (inclination and anteversion) were measured by 2 independent reviewers with a validated 2-dimensional/3-dimensional matching application using a preoperative computed tomographic scan and a postoperative plain film.

There were no outliers for inclination or anteversion for errors within 10° of the preoperative plan. There were 6 (12.8%) outliers for inclination and 11 (23.4%) for anteversion for errors within 5° of the preoperative plan. All patients simultaneously met both targets when an outlier was considered 10°, whereas 30 (63.8%) simultaneously met both targets when the criteria was tightened to 5°. The absolute errors for both inclination and anteversion were significantly less than both 5° and 10° (P<.001).

This device reliably navigates acetabular cup inclination and anteversion individualized for each patient to within 10° of a preoperative plan. Outliers increased when this criteria is tightened to 5° but still appears to be more accurate than conventional acetabular cup component placement. Further research is warranted to assess the clinical impact of reducing outliers using this device.