Femur-mounted navigation system for the arthroscopic treatment of femoroacetabular impingement

Abstract

Femoroacetabular impingement stems from an abnormal shape of the acetabulum and proximal femur. It is treated by resection of damaged soft tissue and by the shaping of bone to resemble normal features. The arthroscopic treatment of femoroacetabular impingement has many advantages, including minimal incisions, rapid recovery, and less pain. However, in some cases, revision is needed owing to the insufficient resection of damaged bone from a misreading of the surgical site. The limited view of arthroscopy is the major reason for the complications. In this research, a navigation method for the arthroscopic treatment of femoroacetabular impingement is developed. The proposed navigation system consists of femur attachable measurement device and user interface. The bone mounted measurement devices measure points on head-neck junction for registration and position of surgical instrument. User interface shows the three-dimensional model of patient's femur and surgical instrument position that is tracked by measurement device. Surgeon can know the three-dimensional anatomical structure of hip joint and surgical instrument position on surgical site using navigation system. Surface registration was used to obtain relation between patient's coordinate at the surgical site and coordinate of three-dimensional model of femur. In this research, we evaluated the proposed navigation system using plastic model bone. It is expected that the surgical tool tracking position accuracy will be less than 1 mm. (C) 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.