LAUSR

Femoral shaft fractures are correlated with frequent morbidity and mortality. It is a major musculoskeletal disorder caused by tremendous force applied to the femur. One of the most common surgical treatments for fixation is intramedullary nailing (IM), which utilises a specially designed metal rod and screws to be implanted into the medullary canal. However, severe bowing of the femur can result in a mismatch between the IM nail and the alignment of the femur. Such mismatch is a risk factor for anterior cortical perforation off the distal femur with subtrochanteric fractures and leg length discrepancy with fractures of the femoral shaft. Therefore, accurate three-dimensional (3D) preoperative planning is mandatory to facilitate the implant s design based on the obtained geometric data, especially for the fractured bowed femur. This paper presents an automatic 3D femur shape analysis system (3D-FSA) based on the extracted skeleton of each individual patient to provide an accurate 3D preoperative simulation. The structure of the 3D femur was generated using a set of computed tomography (CT) images. By using the maximum-minimum centre approach for skeletonization, significant geometric and topological information was captured. The proposed approach can potentially assist in implant measurements.