The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.
BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Surg.
Sec. Orthopedic Surgery
Volume 11 - 2024 |
doi: 10.3389/fsurg.2024.1461144
Diagnostic Performance of Digital Tomosynthesis for Postoperative Assessment of Acetabular Fractures and Pelvic Ring Injuries
Provisionally accepted- 1 Michigan Medicine, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, United States
- 2 Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Introduction: Digital tomosynthesis (DTS) has broad non-orthopaedic applications and has seen limited use within orthopaedics for imaging of the wrist. The utility of DTS for assessing reduction and hardware placement following operative treatment of pelvic ring injuries and acetabular fractures has not previously been investigated. Methods: All operatively treated acetabular fractures and pelvic ring injuries that underwent surgical fixation within a one-year time span received both a computed tomography (CT) scan and a DTS scan as part of their routine postoperative imaging workup. Three orthopaedic traumatologists independently reviewed the images for face-value clinical utility. Radimetrics and PCXMC software were utilized on a subset of the study population's DTS and CT studies to calculate the effective and organ radiation doses delivered. Results: 52 patients (22 acetabular fractures, 22 pelvic ring injuries, 7 pelvic ring and acetabular fractures, 2 femoral head & acetabular fractures) were included. DTS was considered adequate to assess reduction 83% of the time, hardware position 83% of the time, and sufficient to replace the CT scan 67% of the time. DTS was associated with an 8.3 times lower effective radiation dose than CT. All organ doses were lower for DTS than CT. Discussion: DTS appears to have face-value clinical utility for assessing reduction and hardware position following surgical treatment of acetabular fractures and pelvic ring injuries. Given that DTS is associated with significantly lower radiation doses to patients, further study utilizing more objective criteria is warranted.
Keywords: Digital tomosynthesis, postoperative computed tomography, Pelvic ring, Acetabulum, orthopaedic imaging
Received: 07 Jul 2024; Accepted: 14 Oct 2024.
Copyright: © 2024 Coscia, Schweppe, Anari, Kneeland, Horan, Mehta and Ahn. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Atticus Coscia, Michigan Medicine, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, United States
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.