ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Bioeng. Biotechnol.
Sec. Biomechanics
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2025.1629271
Computational Modelling of Acetabular Morphology and Its Implications for Cup Positioning
Provisionally accepted
- 1Department of Mechanical Engineering, University College London, London, United Kingdom
- 2Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Trust, Stanmore, United Kingdom
- 3Institute of Orthopaedics and Musculoskeletal Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom
- 4Cleveland Clinic, London, United Kingdom
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Achieving accurate cup positioning in total hip arthroplasty (THA) remains challenging due to the variable orientation and complex morphology of the bony acetabulum relative to the pelvis.Statistical shape modelling (SSM) has been used to describe the pelvic morphological differences that exist between sexes. However, the effect of these differences on the orientation of the cup/acetabular component in THA has not yet been investigated. The research questions this study aimed to address were i. What are the anatomical variations of the innominate bone between sexes? and ii. Do these sex-based differences have an effect on the position of the acetabular component of a hip replacement? Two sex-specific models were built on threedimensional (3D) representations of 100 healthy bony hemipelvises (50 female and 50 male hemipelvises) which were generated from pelvic computed tomography (CT) images. Principal component analysis (PCA) was implemented to identify the main components of anatomical variation within each group, the principal components (PCs). Variability in size, shape as well as acetabular orientation of the innominate bone was found in both sex-based models. Four and five PCs accounted for 90% of the cumulative variance for the male and female models, respectively. Acetabular orientation was identified as one of the main PCs, supporting the indication that the variability commonly found in the orientation of a prosthetic acetabular component (inclination and version) is influenced by the anatomical shape of the native acetabulum. A better understanding of the relationship between innominate bone morphology and cup positioning can help plan the orientation of acetabular prosthetic components more accurately and define more personalised safe zones. Patient-specific models based on acetabular geometry can enable individualised surgical planning, potentially reducing the risk of postoperative complications such as dislocation, wear and joint instability.
Keywords: Statistical shape modelling, Principal Component Analysis, Hemipelvis, Cup positioning, Personalised Safe Zone
Received: 15 May 2025; Accepted: 14 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 De Angelis, Henckel, Hart and Di Laura. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Sara De Angelis, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University College London, London, United Kingdom
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