Range of motion measurement of an artificial hip joint using CT images

Total hip arthroplasty (THA) is one of the most effective treatments for osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. Dislocation of the femoral head from the acetabular socket is a major problem of THA. To prevent dislocation, it is important to know the range of motion (ROM) after THA. Although various studies on the ROM were carried out, there exist only a few reports on ROM evaluation in individual patients. This is because in clinical cases, bone-to-bone and bone-to-component contacts must be considered besides the impingement of components. In this study, a new method for evaluating ROM of internal/external rotation, which takes into account all combinations of contacts between the bones and components, was proposed. A computer simulation demonstrated that the RMS error of the proposed method was approximately 3°. The method was applied to 33 THAs under various conditions of flexion and adduction angles. The method was able to detect any type of impingement. The evaluated ROM was in good agreement with that measured during the THA operation (correlation coefficient = 0.91).