CHANGE IN OFFSET ON TEMPLATING TEN COMMON HIP REPLACEMENTS

Abstract

Introduction: Restoration of hip biomechanics is an important part of successful total hip replacement. Preoperative templating acts as a guide to selection of size and positioning of prostheses to enable this. We aimed to Establish how closely natural femoral offset could be reproduced using the manufacturers templates for 10 femoral stems in common use in the U.K.

Method: The10 most frequently used femoral components from the U.K. national joint registry (cemented and un-cemented) were identified. Sets of templates for these designs were used to template a series of 47 consecutive pre-operative radiographs from patients who had undergone unilateral total hip replacement for unilateral osteoarthritis of the hip. The non-operated on side of the pelvic radiographs were templated using the 10 sets of templates according to the technique of Schmalzreid. This demonstrated how much the offset of the hip would be changed if that prosthesis were selected and implanted in the templated position. 3 different surgeons performed the complete process. The standard deviation of change in offset between the templated centre of rotation and the normal centre of rotation of the set of radiographs for each prosthesis was then calculated allowing us to rank the templates and hence implants according to their ability to reproduce the normal anatomical offset.

Results: The most accurate template was the CPS with a Root Mean Square Error of 2.0mm followed in rank order by: C stem 2.16, CPT 2.40, Exeter 3.23, Stanmore 3.28, Charnley 3.65, Corail 3.72, ABG II 4.30, Furlong HAC 5.08, Furlong modular 7.14.

Discussion: There is fairly wide variation in the ability of the femoral prosthesis templates to reproduce normal femoral offset in a series of standard pre-operative hip radiographs. The more modern polished tapered stems with high modularity were best able to reproduce femoral offset. There is however no correlation between the prostheses ability to restore offset and clinical results. Some of the older less modular stems, which were unable to get close to normal offset, have some of the best longterm clinical results. With the increasing digitalisation of radiographs a change in the method of templating is required. This may allow manufactures to re-examine their templates and improve the accuracy of this process.