3-DIMENSIONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF CARTILAGINOUS AND BONY COMPONENTS OFDYSPLASTIC HIPS IN CHILDREN - 3-DIMENSIONAL COMPUTED-TOMOGRAPHY QUANTITATIVE-ANALYSIS

A cartilage-viewing technique was developed to overcome the shortcomin g of not seeing the cartilaginous components, believed to play more im portant role than the osseous components in children's hips, with comp uted tomography. This technique was applied to 25 dysplastic hips in c hildren younger than 10 years to evaluate their global and local defic iencies. The findings helped us to understand more about their individ ual problems. To quantify the three-dimensional (3-D) parameters of ac etabular anatomy and femoral head coverage, a measuring technique was developed based on digitization of the 3-D coordinates and fitting of every component of the hip. The improved images and the quantified par ameters were expected to aid the planning, formulation, and even simul ation of individualized surgical treatment for children with developme ntal dysplasia of the hip.