Measuring 3D In-vivo Shoulder Kinematics using Biplanar Videoradiography

Summary

Biplane videoradiography can quantify shoulder kinematics with a high degree of accuracy. The protocol described herein was specifically designed to track the scapula, humerus, and the ribs during planar humeral elevation, and outlines the procedures for data collection, processing, and analysis. Unique considerations for data collection are also described.

Abstract

The shoulder is one of the human body's most complex joint systems, with motion occurring through the coordinated actions of four individual joints, multiple ligaments, and approximately 20 muscles. Unfortunately, shoulder pathologies (e.g., rotator cuff tears, joint dislocations, arthritis) are common, resulting in substantial pain, disability, and decreased quality of life. The specific etiology for many of these pathologic conditions is not fully understood, but it is generally accepted that shoulder pathology is often associated with altered joint motion. Unfortunately, measuring shoulder motion with the necessary level of accuracy to investigate motion-based hypotheses is not trivial. However, radiographic-based motion measurement techniques have provided the advancement necessary to investigate motion-based hypotheses and provide a mechanistic understanding of shoulder function. Thus, the purpose of this article is to describe the approaches for measuring shoulder motion using a custom biplanar videoradiography system. The specific objectives of this article are to describe the protocols to acquire biplanar videoradiographic images of the shoulder complex, acquire CT scans, develop 3D bone models, locate anatomical landmarks, track the position and orientation of the humerus, scapula, and torso from the biplanar radiographic images, and calculate the kinematic outcome measures. In addition, the article will describe special considerations unique to the shoulder when measuring joint kinematics using this approach.

Introduction

The shoulder is one of the human body's most complex joint systems, with motion occurring through the coordinated actions of four individual joints, multiple ligaments, and approximately 20 muscles. The shoulder also has the greatest range of motion of the body's major joints and is often described as a compromise between mobility and stability. Unfortunately, shoulder pathologies are common, resulting in substantial pain, disability, and decreased quality of life. For example, rotator cuff tears affect about 40% of the population over age 60^1,2,3, with approximately ....

Protocol

Prior to data collection, the participant provided written informed consent. The investigation was approved by Henry Ford Health System's Institutional Review Board.

Protocols for acquiring, processing, and analyzing biplane radiographic motion data are highly dependent upon the imaging systems, data processing software, and outcome measures of interest. The following protocol was specifically designed to track the scapula, humerus, and the third and the fourth ribs during scapular-plane or coronal-plane abduction and to quantify glenohumeral, scapulothoracic, and humerothoracic kinematics.

1. CT imaging protoc....

Results

A 52-year-old asymptomatic female (BMI = 23.6 kg/m²) was recruited as part of a previous investigation and underwent motion testing (coronal plane abduction) on her dominant (right) shoulder⁶⁵. Prior to data collection, the participant provided written informed consent. The investigation was approved by Henry Ford Health System's Institutional Review Board. Data collection was performed using the protocol previously described (Figure 3).

Discussion

The technique described here overcomes several disadvantages associated with conventional techniques for assessing shoulder motion (i.e., cadaveric simulations, 2D imaging, static 3D imaging, video-based motion capture systems, wearable sensors, etc.) by providing accurate measures of 3D joint motion during dynamic activities. The accuracy of the protocol described herein was established for the glenohumeral joint against the gold standard of radiostereometric analysis (RSA) to be ±0.5° and ±0.4 mm

Materials

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
Calibration cube	Built in-house	N/A	10 cm Lucite box with a tantalum bead in each corner and four additional beads midway along the box’s vertical edges (12 beads total). The positions of each bead are precisely known relative to a corner of the box that serves as the origin of the laboratory coordinate system.
Distortion correction grid	Built in-house	N/A	Lucite sheet that covers the entire face of the 16 inch image intensifier and contains an orthogonal array of tantalum beads spaced at 1 cm.
ImageJ	National Institutes of Health	N/A	Image processing software used to prepare TIFF stack of bone volumes.
Markerless Tracking Workbench	Custom, in house software	N/A	A workbench of custom software used to digitize anatomical landmarks on 3D bone models, constructs anatomical coordinate systems, uses intensity-based image registration to perform markerless tracking, and calculates and visualize kinematic outcomes measures.
MATLAB	Mathworks, Inc	N/A	Computer programming software. For used to perform data processing and analysis.
Mimics (version 20)	Materialise, Inc	N/A	Image processing software used to segment humerus, scapula, and ribs from CT scan.
Open Inventor	Thermo Fisher Scientific	N/A	3D graphics program used to visualize bones
Phantom Camera Control (PCC) software (version 3.4)		N/A	Software for specifying camera parameters, and acquiring and saving radiographic images
Pulse generator (Model 9514)	Quantum Composers, Inc.	N/A	Syncs the x-ray and camera systems and specifies the exposure time
Two 100 kW pulsed x-ray generators (Model CPX 3100CV)	EMD Technologies	N/A	Generates the x-rays used to produce radiographic images
Two 40 cm image intensifiers (Model P9447H110)	North American Imaging	N/A	Converts x-rays into photons to produce visible image
Two Phantom VEO 340 cameras	Vision Research	N/A	High speed cameras record the visible image created by the x-ray system