Technical note for intraoperative determination of proper acetabular cup size in primary total hip arthroplasty

Selecting the optimal size of components is crucial when performing a primary total hip arthroplasty. Implanting the accurate size of the acetabular component can occasionally be exacting, chiefly for surgeons with little experience, whilst the complications of imprecise acetabular sizing or over-reaming can be potentially devastating.

To assist clinicians intraoperatively with a simple and repeatable tip in elucidating the ambivalence when determining the proper acetabular component size is not straightforwardly achieved, specifically when surgeons are inexperienced or preoperative templating is unavailable.

This method was employed in 263 operations in our department from June 2021 to December 2022. All operations were performed by the same team of joint reconstruction surgeons, employing a typical posterior hip approach technique. The types of acetabular shells implanted were: The Dynasty^® acetabular cup system (MicroPort Orthopedics, Shanghai, China) and the R3^® acetabular system (Smith & Nephew, Watford, United Kingdom), which both feature cementless press-fit design.

The mean value of all cases was calculated and collated with each other. We distinguished as oversized an implanted acetabular shell when its size was > 2 mm larger than the size of the acetabular size indicator reamer (ASIR) or when the implanted shell was larger than 4 mm compared to the preoperative planned cup. The median size of the implanted acetabular shell was 52 (48-54) mm, while the median size of the preoperatively planned cup was 50 (48-56) mm, and the median size of the ASIR was 52 (50-54) mm. The correlation coefficient between ASIR size and implanted acetabular component size exhibited a high positive correlation with r = 0.719 (P < 0.001). Contrariwise, intraoperative ASIR measurements precisely predicted the implanted cups' size or differed by only one size (2 mm) in 245 cases.

In our study, we demonstrated that the size of the first acetabular reamer not entering freely in the acetabular rim corroborates the final acetabular component size to implant. This was also corresponding in the majority of the cases with conventional preoperative templating. It can be featured as a valid tool for avoiding the potentially pernicious complications of acetabular cup over-reaming and over-sizing in primary total hip arthroplasty. It is a simple and reproducible technical note useful for confirming the predicted acetabular cup size preoperatively; thus, its application could be considered routinely, even in cases where preoperative templating is unavailable.