Automatic bone drilling by femoral head structure detection

Abstract

There is an increase in the incidence of hip fractures worldwide in recent years, associated with the upward trend in the life expectancy of the human population. Hip fractures occur mostly in patients aged over 60 years. Therefore, the task for optimization of hip fracture treatment and maximal patients’ recovery is of serious social importance. Many scientists devote their efforts to improving the solutions to such cases. This work presents a specific algorithm developed for registration of human femoral head far cortex and human femoral head end. Its realization is a very successful robot application in the orthopaedic surgery – automatic bone drilling. The experimental specimens are human hip heads obtained during hip-joint excision arthroplasty. The device indicates the maximal hole depths which could be reached. Such information helps to determine and calculate the accurate implant size to ensure its positioning in the desired area of the hip head and reaching maximal fixation strength. The risk of penetration into the joint capsule is eliminated by software defence that the robot is responsible for. The proposed solution is a promising approach towards improvement of the precision and outcome of hip fracture treatment.

Keywords

• Femoral head drilling
• robot
• human specimens
• experimental results