An evaluation method of EndoButton position in MDCT image after anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction

Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) reconstruction is performed to recover the injured knee which often happens in sports activity such as skiing, and basketball. The ACL reconstruction makes two bone tunnels in the femur and tibia. Then, the harvested graft passes the bone tunnels so that the femur and tibia are connected. The graft is fixed to the femur by using EndoButton. However, loosening of the fixation sometimes happens due to movement the EndoButton. It results in instability of the knee motion. Examination of frequency of occurrence of fixation loosening contributes to improve surgery procedure. This study set the goal to propose an evaluation method of EndoButton Position in MDCT image after ACL reconstruction. The proposal system was examined with this manually results. In the results, the error of anteromedial and posterolateral EndoButton were 1.88±1.03 and 1.78±1.19, respectively. As a result, the proposed method could detect automatically anatomical reference points and evaluate EndoButton positions.