An Evaluation of Sensing Technologies to Measure Intraoperative Leg Length for Total Hip Arthroplasty

Total hip arthroplasty (THA) procedures have been identified as high-volume procedures with growing prevalence. During the procedure, orthopedic surgeons largely rely solely on qualitative assessment to ensure an excessive limb length discrepancy (LLD) is not introduced from the implant selection. LLD can result in back pain and gait complications, with some cases of LLD requiring a revision procedure to mitigate. To address this issue, we evaluated several methods of sensing distance intraoperatively to determine the best approach to measure leg length during the THA procedure. A testing setup using a sawbones model of hip anatomy in the decubitus position was used as a simulation of the THA procedure to test the accuracy of each of the sensing modalities.