MRI/CT and Movie Techniques Assist Knee Surgery

Two studies involved corrective procedures to reduce cartilage stress while another evaluated past studies on surgical outcomes of muscle length alterations for children with cerebral palsy.

The study is part of the International Union of Physiological Sciences (IUPS) Physiome Project, which helped devise the modeling framework to study soft tissue and general musculo-skeletal disorders. Utilizing the physical geometries and characteristic responses of tissue to loading, computers assessed the forces and contact stresses at the joints, and a patient-specific profile was then created using morphing methods based on the individual's MR or CT data.

Two of the model procedures involved cartilage stress. High joint stress can lead to osteoarthritis and general knee pain. This leads to the next step of this approach, which is to be used as a diagnostic tool, surgical aid, and clinical outcome assessment. This step connects the current modeling framework at the organ level with the underlying cellular level microstructure overlaid with still digital and moving images of the individual patient.

"Eventually, modeling across spatial scales will allow us to extend the model's scope to investigate the effects of disease and drugs, and their effects on the whole body,” said Dr. Hunter. So far, in another application, "Our full knee model has also been used to assess literature describing muscle length surgery for children with cerebral palsy. Our model presents virtual simulation of a subject walking, showing joint angles and muscle lengths, while comparing this with the normal population.”




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Auckland University Bioengineering Institute