A personalized 3D printing guide in total hip arthroplasty

Abstract

Objective To explore the role of a customized 3D printing guide in total hip arthroplasty (THA). Methods A retrospective analysis was performed of the 60 patients who had been treated by THA for avascular necrosis of the femoral head at Department of Orthopaedics and Traumatology, Foshan Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine from January 2018 to May 2019. Half of them used the personalized 3D printing guide in THA and half did not. In the guide group there were 17 men and 13 women with an age of 53.4±8.9 years while in the conventional group 19 men and 11 women with an age of 54.7±9.4 years. The acetabular cups were orientated at an abduction angle of 40° and an anteversion angle of 15°. The intraoperative blood loss, operation time and acetabular abduction angle were compared between the 2 groups. Results The 2 groups were comparable due to insignificant differences between them in gender, age, body mass, cause of disease or staging of avascular necrosis of the femoral head (P>0.05). The guide group had significantly less intraoperative blood loss (286.7±150.8 mL) and operation time (90.5±34.4 min) than the conventional group did (438.3±292.6 mL and 115.6±58.6 min) (P< 0.05). The acetabular cup abduction was 38.9°±4.2° in the guide group and 37.2°±5.5° in the conventional group, showing no significant difference(t=1.315, P=0.194). Conclusion Use of a personalized 3D printing guide in THA can shorten the time for installation of an acetabular prosthesis and reduce the amount of intraoperative blood loss, but it leads to insignificant difference in the postoperative acetabular cup abduction compared with no use of the guide. Key words: Arthroplasty, replacement, hip; 3D printing technique; Guide