Which one is more affected by navigation-assisted cup positioning in total hip arthroplasty: Anteversion or inclination? A retrospective matched-pair cohort study in Asian physique.

Introduction: The purpose of this study was to compare acetabular cup positioning using an imageless navigation-assisted total hip arthroplasty (THA) to a case-matched control group using the conventional technique in Asian physique.

Methods: Case matching controlled study using retrospectively collected data for THAs was done. Matching criteria were gender, age ± 5 years, and body mass index ± 5 kg/m. Thirty patients who had navigation THAs were manually matched to a conventional group of 30 patients. After measuring anteversion and inclination on 3-D CT, final cup anteversion was calculated using the mathematical formula (anteversion = arctan [tan (anatomic anteversion) × sin (inclination)]).

Results: No significant difference was observed between mean inclination ( p = 0.420), anteversion ( p = 0.697), and the mean deviation from 15° for anteversion ( p = 0.649). However, there was a statistical significant difference for mean deviation from 40° for inclination ( p = 0.027). There was a significant difference in the percentage of correctly placed acetabular cup in safe zones with inclination ( p = 0.039).

Conclusions: Although soft tissue overlying the pubic tubercle interfered with registration of the bony landmark and thereby induced inaccuracy of anteversion angles in the navigation group, the use of imageless navigation-assisted technique increases the placement within the safe zone for inclination and enhances the accuracy and the precision of inclination of the acetabular cup relative to the conventional THA rather than anteversion. This finding may be due to the effect of the patient's physique on the anterior pelvic plane (APP)-based reference system of imageless navigation.