Total hip replacement procedures are among the most frequent surgical interventions in all industrialized countries. Although it is a routine operationliterature reports that important parameters regarding for example cup orientation and leg length discrepancy often turn out to be not satisfying after surgery. This paper presents a novel concept to improve the reproducibility and accuracy for implantation of cup and stem prosthesis at exactly the desired locations. Existing computer- based commercial products either offer software solutions for just pre-operative planning, or imageless navigation systems that are only used during surgery in the operating theatre. The innovation of our approach is based on an integrated computer-assisted solution that combines pre-operative planning and intra-operative navigation to support THR procedures.

The software for pre-operative planning can process both, 3D CT images and standard 2D x-ray images. A custom-built navigation system using optical 3D localizing technology has been developed to transfer planning results to the OR. The main objective of our approach is to implant the artificial joint in a way to restore the natural anatomy of the joint before surgery as close as possible, or with exactly planned modifications. In particular, cup inclination, cumulative anteversion of cup and stem, CCD angle and lateral offset, centre of rotation, leg length discrepancy, and joint range of motion are considered. It is not necessary to determine numerical values for all of these parameters because our approach uses a unique procedure to record the natural anatomical situation by combining pre-operative planning and intra-operative navigation, and subsequently supports implantation of the prosthesis components by surgical navigation in order to restore this situation.

In case planar 2D x-ray images are used for pre-operative planning accurate scaling of these images is a prerequisite for exact determination of relevant parameters. The patient-specific scaling factor depends on the distance of the hip joint rotation centre from the x-ray detector or film. We have designed a low-cost localization system to be mounted close to the x-ray apparatus. It localizes the 3D position of the rotation centre by small motions of the leg and eliminates uncertainties of conventional methods that are caused by improper positioning of a calibration body.

Easy and robust setup and application have been key objectives for the development of our custom-built navigation system. Acquisition of intraoperative parameters for example includes the determination of the acetabular centre axis by localizing selected landmarks at the acetabular rim. Intra-operative parameters are combined with pre-operative parameters without needing sophisticated matching procedures with the pre-operative images.

A preliminary surgical workflow that will be detailed in the conference presentation has been designed for evaluation of the concept using sawbones models. Based on the promising results of our laboratory tests we have started to prepare first clinical experiments in close cooperation with surgeons.

Total hip replacement in Germany has been performed in 227293 cases in 2015 and tendency is increasing. Although it is a standard intervention, freehand positioning of cup protheses has frequently poor accuracy. Image-based and image-free navigation systems improve the accuracy but most of them provide target positions as alphanumeric values on large-size screens beneath the patient site. In this case the surgeon always has to move his head frequently to change his eye-focus between incision and display to capture the target values. Already published studies using e.g. IPod-based displays or LED ring displays, show the chance for improvement by alternative approaches. Therefore, we propose a novel solution for an instrument-mounted small display in order to visualise intuitive instructions for instrument guidance directly in the viewing area of the surgeon.

For this purpose a solution consisting of a MicroView OLED display with integrated Arduino microcontroller, equipped with a Bluetooth interface as well as a battery has been developed. We have used an optical tracking system and our custom-designed navigation software to track surgical instruments equipped with reference bodies to acquire the input for the mini-display. The first implementation of the display is adapted to total hip replacement and focuses on assistance while reaming the acetabulum. In this case the reamer has to be centred to the middle point of the acetabular rim circle and its rotation axis must be aligned to the acetabular centre axis by Hakki. By means of these references the actual deviations between instrument and target pose are calculated and indicated. The display contains a cross-hair indicator for current position, two bubble level bars for angular deviation and a square in square indicator for depth control. All display parts are furnished with an adaptive variable scale. Highest possible resolution is 0.5 degrees angular, 1 millimeter for position and depth resolution is set to 2 mm.

Compared to existing approaches for instrument-mounted displays, the small display of our solution offers high flexibility to adjust the mounting position such that it is best visible for the surgeon while not constraining instrument handling. Despite the small size, the proposed visualisation symbols provide all information for instrument positioning in an intuitive way.