Method for creating a surgical resection plan for treating a pathological deformity of a bone

1. Method for creating a surgical resection plan for treating a pathological deformity of a bone having a rim bounding a substantially hemispherical cavity of the bone, comprising:

receiving a set of 3D medical images of said bone,

defining from said 3D medical images patient anatomical landmark data comprising a center of said substantially hemispherical cavity in a patient referential, a rim axis extending from said center and generally perpendicular to the opening plane of said substantially hemispherical cavity, a circumferential coordinate system assigned to said rim and a plurality of points located along the rim,

determining from said patient anatomical landmark data a 3D patient coverage curve comprising, in the circumferential coordinate system assigned to the rim, a plurality of points representing a coverage parameter of the bone with respect to the substantially hemispherical cavity at a plurality of points along the rim, wherein, for each of said plurality of rim points, said coverage parameter is computed from the coverage angle between (i) the rim axis and (ii) a radius connecting the center of the substantially hemispherical cavity and the respective rim point,

receiving reference data corresponding to a reference rim morphology, said data comprising a 3D reference coverage curve,

creating:

a 3D surface model of at least a part of the bone including the rim from said set of 3D images, and

a 3D reference rim morphology model from the 3D reference coverage curve,

computing and displaying a virtual resection of the bone onto the 3D surface model to

simulate removal of over-covered bone portions.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the 3D reference coverage curve is determined from a cohort of subjects without said pathology by carrying out the following steps:

for each subject of the cohort:

receiving a set of 3D medical images of said bone and defining from said 3D medical images patient anatomical landmark data comprising a center of said substantially hemispherical cavity in a patient referential, a rim axis, a circumferential coordinate system assigned to said rim and a plurality of points located along the rim,

measuring a coverage parameter of the bone with respect to the substantially hemispherical cavity at a plurality of points along the rim,

averaging the measured coverage parameter for each of said plurality of points along the rim for the cohort,

constructing the 3D reference coverage curve in the circumferential rim coordinate system based on the average coverage parameter at said plurality of points along the rim.

3. The method of claim 2 , further comprising calculating the coverage parameter standard deviation for each of said plurality of points along the rim for the cohort and constructing the 3D reference coverage curve in the circumferential rim coordinate system based on the average coverage parameter and the standard deviation at said plurality of points along the rim.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the 3D reference coverage curve is selected from a database of 3D reference coverage curves, each 3D reference coverage curve being assigned to a determined population of subjects.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising displaying the 3D surface model and the 3D reference rim morphology model fitted to said 3D surface model.

6. The method of claim 5 , comprising interactively adjusting the position and/or orientation of the 3D reference rim morphology model with respect to the 3D surface model.

7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising displaying the regions of the 3D surface model that are over-covered or under-covered with respect to the 3D reference rim morphology model.

8. The method of claim 1 , comprising interactively adjusting said virtual resection by operating a cursor of a graphical interface so as to adjust the reference coverage within a determined range of deviation.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the computation of the virtual resection comprises creating a smooth transition between resected and non-resected surfaces.

10. The method of claim 1 , comprising displaying said virtual resection using a color scale wherein different depths of resection are represented by different colors.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein the set of 3D images comprises CT images, MR images and/or ultrasound images.

12. The method of claim 1 , wherein the circumferential coordinate system assigned to the rim is a clock-face referential or angular polar coordinate system.

13. The method of claim 1 , wherein the rim axis is the medial-lateral anatomic axis of the bone comprising the substantially hemispherical cavity.

14. The method of claim 1 , wherein the rim axis is normal to the opening plane of the substantially hemispherical cavity.

15. The method of claim 1 , wherein the bone is an acetabulum and the pathology is pincer femoro-acetabular impingement.

16. The method of claim 15 , wherein the coverage parameter is determined from a coverage angle between a medial-lateral axis of the pelvis and a radius joining the center of the hemispherical cavity and a rim point, measured in an image slice comprising the medial-lateral axis.

17. The method of claim 16 , wherein the coverage parameter is expressed as a percentage by dividing the coverage angle by 180°.

18. The method of claim 15 , wherein the center of the hemispherical cavity is the center of the femoral head or the acetabulum center.

19. The method of claim 15 , wherein the rim axis is defined as the axis joining the centers of the left and right femoral heads of the patient.