A Wireless Visualized Sensing System with Prosthesis Pose Reconstruction for Total Knee Arthroplasty.

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Orthopedic Surgery
• Surgical Robotics

Background:

• Total knee arthroplasty (TKA) success relies on precise femoral and tibial component implantation.
• Accurate assessment of the knee prosthesis's instant and kinetic relative pose is crucial for surgical quality evaluation.
• Existing methods may lack the precision needed for real-time intraoperative pose assessment.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and implement a wireless visualized sensing system for real-time instant and kinetic prosthesis pose reconstruction during TKA.
• To evaluate the accuracy of the proposed system in measuring prosthesis alignment and forces.
• To demonstrate the system's capability in detecting surgical defects missed by conventional methods.

Main Methods:

• A multimodal sensing device, mimicking the spacer's size and shape, was temporarily implanted.
• The device captured intra-articular images and contact force distributions.
• Wireless data transmission (432 MHz) to a workstation enabled signal processing and pose reconstruction.

Main Results:

• Absolute reconstruction errors were <1.73° for flexion-extension, <1.08° for internal-external rotation, and <1.55 mm for mediolateral translation.
• Force balance measurements achieved an error of ±5 N.
• Kinetic pose reconstruction successfully identified surgical defects undetectable by force or static pose analysis.

Conclusions:

• The wireless visualized sensing system provides accurate real-time pose reconstruction for TKA.
• The system enhances surgical quality evaluation by offering precise alignment and force data.
• Kinetic pose analysis offers a novel approach for detecting subtle surgical inaccuracies.