Core decompression by exact drilling into ischemic lesions of the femoral condyle stays a challenging procedure, particularly in obese patients. The precision of fluoroscopically-based drilling compared to conventional drilling was evaluated in an in-vitro model for obesity. 40 sawbones were prepared mimicking osteonecrosis in obese patients. 20 sawbones were drilled by guidance of an intraoperative navigation system VectorVision® (BrainLAB, Munich, Germany); the other 20 sawbones were conventionally drilled by fluoroscopic control only. Regarding the distance to the desired mid-point of the lesion, a statistically significant difference with 0.55 mm in the navigated group and 1.19 mm in the control group could be stated (p<0.001). Significant differences were further found for the number of drilling corrections (p<0.001) and radiation time needed (p<0.001). Even in difficult circumstances as in obese patients, the drilling guided by the VectorVision®-navigation system shows high precision with simultaneous enormous reduction of radiation time.
JavaScript is turned off in your web browser. Turn it on to take full advantage of this site, then refresh the page.