Validation of a low-dose hybrid RSA and fluoroscopy technique: Determination of accuracy, bias and precision

Analyzing skeletal kinematics with radiostereometric analysis (RSA) following corrective orthopedic surgery allows the quantitative comparison of different implant designs. The purpose of this study was to validate a technique for dynamically estimating the relative position and orientation of skeletal segments using RSA and single plane X-ray fluoroscopy. Two micrometer-based in vitro phantom models of the skeletal segments in the hip and knee joints were used. The spatial positions of tantalum markers that were implanted into each skeletal segment were reconstructed using RSA. The position and orientation of each segment were determined in fluoroscopy images by minimizing the difference between the markers measured and projected in the image plane. Accuracy was determined in terms of bias and precision by analyzing the deviation between the applied displacement protocol and measured pose estimates. Measured translational accuracy was less than 100μm parallel to the image plane and less than 700μm in the direction orthogonal to the image plane. The measured rotational error was less than 1°. Measured translational and rotational bias was not statistically significant at the 95% level of confidence. The technique allows real-time kinematic skeletal measurements to be performed on human subjects implanted with tantalum markers for quantitatively measuring the motion of normal joints and different implant designs.