Contribution to the method for determining femoral neck axis

Abstract

Introduction: Femoral neck axis plotting is of great significance in measuring parameters that define femoral head-neck junction sphericity in the group of patients with the femoroacetabular impingement. Literature methods of femoral neck axis determination have weaknesses associated with the risk of obtaining inaccurate values of certain parameters. Objective: Method of plotting of the femoral neck axis by two parallel lines that belong to the medial quarter of the femoral neck is proposed. Method was tested on the anatomic specimens and the respective radiograms. Methods: A total of 31 anatomic specimens of the proximal femur and respective radiographs were used, on which three axes of the femoral neck were plotted; accordingly, alpha angle value was determined and tested with corresponding parametric tests, with the measurement error of less than 5% and the strength of the applied tests of 80%. Results: Alpha angle values obtained by plotting femoral neck axis using the literature and methods we have proposed were not significantly different in our series, and, in more than a half of the specimens, the two axes overlapped each other. Conclusion: The advantage of the proposed method does not depend on the position of the femoral head rotation center in relation to the femoral neck, which favors proposed method for measuring the angles of femoral head sphericity in patients with the femoral head translation. Disadvantage of the study is a small sample size for valid conclusions about the applicability of this method in clinical practice.