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Proximal femur anatomy-implant geometry discrepancies
Andries Johannes Cornelissen1, Nando Ferreira1, Marilize Cornelle Burger1
1Division of Orthopaedic Surgery, Department of Surgical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Stellenbosch University, Cape Town 7505, South Africa.
Objectives:
Due to ongoing concern about femur anatomy-implant mismatches, this cross-sectional study aimed to create a geometric femur profile and used it to identify and quantify possible mismatches between femur anatomy and cephalomedullary nail dimensions. The work further aimed to assess whether patient demographics affect anatomy-implant coherence.
Methods:
One hundred skeletally mature complete femur computer tomography (CT) scans were collected and exported to software enabling landmark placement and measures with multiplanar reconstruction techniques.
Results:
Clinically relevant anatomy-implant discrepancies included the femur neck and shaft axis offset 6.1 ± 1.7 mm (95% CI [5.7-6.4]), femur radius of curvature 1.2 ± 0.3 m (95% CI [1.1-1.2]), femur anteversion 18.8 ± 9.2 (95% CI [16.9-20.6]). The implants reviewed in this study did not compensate for the femur neck and shaft axis offset and had a larger radius of curvature than the studied population. Clinically significant demographic geometry differences were not identified.
Conclusion:
There were discrepancies between femur anatomy and cephalomedullary nail implant design; however, no clinically significant femur feature inconsistency was identified among the demographic subgroups. Due to the identified anatomy-implant discrepancies, including the femur neck and shaft axis offset, we suggest that these measurements be considered for future implant design and surgical technique.
