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Patient-specific geometrical modeling of orthopedic structures with high efficiency and accuracy for finite element modeling and 3D printing

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Abstract

We improved the geometrical modeling procedure for fast and accurate reconstruction of orthopedic structures. This procedure consists of medical image segmentation, three-dimensional geometrical reconstruction, and assignment of material properties. The patient-specific orthopedic structures reconstructed by this improved procedure can be used in the virtual surgical planning, 3D printing of real orthopedic structures and finite element analysis. A conventional modeling consists of: image segmentation, geometrical reconstruction, mesh generation, and assignment of material properties. The present study modified the conventional method to enhance software operating procedures. Patient’s CT images of different bones were acquired and subsequently reconstructed to give models. The reconstruction procedures were three-dimensional image segmentation, modification of the edge length and quantity of meshes, and the assignment of material properties according to the intensity of gravy value. We compared the performance of our procedures to the conventional procedures modeling in terms of software operating time, success rate and mesh quality. Our proposed framework has the following improvements in the geometrical modeling: (1) processing time: (femur: 87.16 ± 5.90 %; pelvis: 80.16 ± 7.67 %; thoracic vertebra: 17.81 ± 4.36 %; P < 0.05); (2) least volume reduction (femur: 0.26 ± 0.06 %; pelvis: 0.70 ± 0.47, thoracic vertebra: 3.70 ± 1.75 %; P < 0.01) and (3) mesh quality in terms of aspect ratio (femur: 8.00 ± 7.38 %; pelvis: 17.70 ± 9.82 %; thoracic vertebra: 13.93 ± 9.79 %; P < 0.05) and maximum angle (femur: 4.90 ± 5.28 %; pelvis: 17.20 ± 19.29 %; thoracic vertebra: 3.86 ± 3.82 %; P < 0.05). Our proposed patient-specific geometrical modeling requires less operating time and workload, but the orthopedic structures were generated at a higher rate of success as compared with the conventional method. It is expected to benefit the surgical planning of orthopedic structures with less operating time and high accuracy of modeling.

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Acknowledgments

This work is supported in part by the 863 Program of China under Grant 2012AA02A603, in part by the Guangzhou science and technology planning project under Grant 2014J4100153, in part by the Science and technology projects in Guangdong Province under Grant 2014B090901055, and in part by the Science and technology projects in Guangdong Province under Grant 2014A020212176.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Orthopedics, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Southern Medical University (Academy of Orthopedics · Guangdong Province), Guangzhou, 510630, China

    Huajun Huang & Canjun Zeng

  2. Department of Orthopedics and Traumatology, Nanfang Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, 510515, China

    Chunling Xiang

  3. Department of Anatomy, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Medical Biomechanics, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Southern Medical University, North-1838, Guangzhou, 510515, China

    Canjun Zeng, Hanbin Ouyang & Wenhua Huang

  4. Engineering Computational Biology, School of Computer Science and Software Engineering, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA, 6000, Australia

    Kelvin Kian Loong Wong

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  1. Huajun Huang
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Wenhua Huang.

Appendix

Appendix

See Table 3.

Table 3 Commands of the softwares used in the modelling operations
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Huang, H., Xiang, C., Zeng, C. et al. Patient-specific geometrical modeling of orthopedic structures with high efficiency and accuracy for finite element modeling and 3D printing. Australas Phys Eng Sci Med 38, 743–753 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13246-015-0402-1

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