Bone and Joint Institute
Accuracy assessment of 3D bone reconstructions using CT: An intro comparison
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
8-1-2015
Journal
Medical Engineering and Physics
Volume
37
Issue
8
First Page
729
Last Page
738
URL with Digital Object Identifier
10.1016/j.medengphy.2015.04.010
Abstract
© 2015 IPEM. Computed tomography provides high contrast imaging of the joint anatomy and is used routinely to reconstruct 3D models of the osseous and cartilage geometry (CT arthrography) for use in the design of orthopedic implants, for computer assisted surgeries and computational dynamic and structural analysis. The objective of this study was to assess the accuracy of bone and cartilage surface model reconstructions by comparing reconstructed geometries with bone digitizations obtained using an optical tracking system. Bone surface digitizations obtained in this study determined the ground truth measure for the underlying geometry. We evaluated the use of a commercially available reconstruction technique using clinical CT scanning protocols using the elbow joint as an example of a surface with complex geometry. To assess the accuracies of the reconstructed models (8 fresh frozen cadaveric specimens) against the ground truth bony digitization-as defined by this study-proximity mapping was used to calculate residual error. The overall mean error was less than 0.4mm in the cortical region and 0.3mm in the subchondral region of the bone. Similarly creating 3D cartilage surface models from CT scans using air contrast had a mean error of less than 0.3mm. Results from this study indicate that clinical CT scanning protocols and commonly used and commercially available reconstruction algorithms can create models which accurately represent the true geometry.
