The determination of acetabular parameters in a Turkish population sample: CT-based retrospective analysis of side and gender differences

Abstract

Determination of the acetabular morphology and orientation is important for the total hip arthroplasty applications. In general, preoperative planning for these patients is done on true hip X-rays in orthopedics clinics. But those evaluations may not represent the acetabular architecture in detail, because of 2 dimensional images. The aim of this study is to determine the acetabular morphology of a healthy Turkish adult population sample through examination of acetabular parameters on 3-dimensional computed tomography (CT)-based images according to side and gender. A retrospective evaluation was made of acetabulum CT scans taken for various reasons in a healthy Turkish population sample. The examination parameters were defined as measurements of the acetabular anteversion angle, acetabular abduction angle, lateral center edge angle, acetabular width, acetabular depth, sagittal acetabular angle, and medial wall thickness values. The CT scans including the bone structure were examined of a total of 252 hips of 126 patients. The acetabular index was calculated as depth/width × 100. Lateral center edge angle of < 20° with medial wall thickness > 5 mm was accepted as a criterion of dysplasia of the acetabulum. Evaluation was made of the acetabular CT scans of 73 females and 53 males with a mean age of 44.64 ± 12.31 (19–68) years. A statistically significant difference was determined between the sides in respect of acetabular anteversion angle (P = .007) and between the genders in respect of acetabular depth and acetabular width (P = .001, P = .001). The prevalence of dysplasia was determined to be 1.6% for the whole study group, as 1.9% in males and 1.4% in females. In the current study sample there were parametric differences between sides and genders in terms of acetabulum morphology and orientation. Further studies of larger series will be able to provide a better representation of the Turkish population.