Determination of Total Knee Replacement Parameter by Simulation

시뮬레이션을 이용한 슬관절 수술 변수 결정

A total knee replacement is an extremely 'position-sensitive' operation; a malposition or a malalignment of the components will lead to a breakage of the component, a fracture around the knee prosthesis, and the limitation of range of the motion, etc. In a conventional total knee replacement, surgeons have to select an appropriate prosthesis according to the shape of the surgical region. A wrong selection may give rise to side effects or to need re-operation. Nevertheless, it is so difficult to choose the most proper prosthesis out of various kinds of prosthesis. This paper presents a surgical planning system for the total knee replacement with an operation simulating method in order to determine the parameters for the total knee replacement operation. We select an alignment axis and a resection angle as major operation parameters in the total knee replacement operation, and introduce the method to determine the major operation parameters with the operation simulator we developed. The simulator is used to determine operation parameters for optimized operations, to select the most appropriate prosthesis, and to analyze the prospective problems of the operation.