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PLOS One logoLink to PLOS One
. 2021 May 27;16(5):e0252435. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0252435

Computational modelling of hip resurfacing arthroplasty investigating the effect of femoral version on hip biomechanics

Jonathan Bourget-Murray 1,*, Ashish Taneja 1, Sadegh Naserkhaki 2, Marwan El-Rich 3, Samer Adeeb 3, James Powell 1, Kelly Johnston 1
Editor: Jose Manuel Garcia Aznar4
PMCID: PMC8158908  PMID: 34043721

Abstract

Aim

How reduced femoral neck anteversion alters the distribution of pressure and contact area in Hip Resurfacing Arthroplasty (HRA) remains unclear. The purpose of this study was to quantitatively describe the biomechanical implication of different femoral neck version angles on HRA using a finite element analysis.

Materials and methods

A total of sixty models were constructed to assess the effect of different femoral neck version angles on three different functional loads: 0°of hip flexion, 45°of hip flexion, and 90° of hip flexion. Femoral version was varied between 30° of anteversion to 30° of retroversion. All models were tested with the acetabular cup in four different positions: (1) 40°/15° (inclination/version), (2) 40°/25°, (3) 50°/15°, and (4) 50°/25°. Differences in range of motion due to presence of impingement, joint contact pressure, and joint contact area with different femoral versions and acetabular cup positions were calculated.

Results

Impingement was found to be most significant with the femur in 30° of retroversion, regardless of acetabular cup position. Anterior hip impingement occurred earlier during hip flexion as the femur was progressively retroverted. Impingement was reduced in all models by increasing acetabular cup inclination and anteversion, yet this consequentially led to higher contact pressures. At 90° of hip flexion, contact pressures and contact areas were inversely related and showed most notable change with 30° of femoral retroversion. In this model, the contact area migrated towards the anterior implant-bone interface along the femoral neck.

Conclusion

Femoral retroversion in HRA influences impingement and increases joint contact pressure most when the hip is loaded in flexion. Increasing acetabular inclination decreases the area of impingement but doing so causes a reciprocal increase in joint contact pressure. It may be advisable to study femoral neck version pre-operatively to better choose hip resurfacing arthroplasty candidates.

Introduction

There is evidence that Hip Resurfacing Arthroplasty (HRA) offers better function in daily life, higher activity, and better general physical health compared to Total Hip Arthroplasty (THA) in young active males [1]. This patient population have historically experience decreased overall satisfaction and higher complication rates when THA is performed [2]. Advocates of HRA suggest fewer dislocations, decrease proximal femoral stress shielding, and improved restoration of a more anatomic hip that allow for greater motion [35]. In addition, HRA provides potential for return to high-level activities [6]. Equally important, the conservative resection of femoral bone preserves bone stock, thus facilitating future revision surgery [4,7]. Although the use of these implants has substantially dropped due to concerns of adverse local reactions from metal-ion debris and the possible increased risk of femoral neck fractures, the Birmingham Hip Resurfacing system has remained in use and several centers continue to report excellent long-term clinical and functional outcomes [814].

In light of these adverse events, several studies have identified risk factors attributed to early failure, which include: implant design, component position and size, female sex, patient age, and surgeon inexperience [8,12,1517]. As a means to investigate the association between femoral implant malposition on damage formation of the femur, a recent finite element analysis was developed. This model was developed from a 47-year old patient’s computed tomography (CT) image and the loading simulation was that of normal walking condition. The analysis showed that the model experienced the most damage when the femoral head implant was in varus position (>130°), but was reduced significantly when the implant was placed in valgus position (<130°) [16]. On the other hand, Ramos et al. developed experimental and numerical models to analyze whether the positioning of the resurfacing head implant is important in the distribution of bone strains and in the risk of fracture of the femur [17]. They found that valgus position reduces strain distribution in the medial aspect of the femur and brings about a lower shear stress, thus reducing the risk of femoral neck fracture. However, despite appropriate patient selection and precise implant positioning, there continues to be a subset of patients who experience early failure following HRA. Structural abnormalities of the hip may serve as an explanation for some of these failures.

Patients who present with end-stage arthritis of the hip can have contributing underlying structural abnormalities, such as acetabular dysplasia or femoroacetabular impingement (FAI). Cam and pincer impingements are well described but reduced femoral neck anteversion is less obvious and can be a major contributor to FAI and ultimately, hip arthritis [18]. While the biomechanical implications of acetabular component malposition has been extensively studied, that of femoral version remain unclear. This structural abnormality may be responsible for ongoing impingement and may increase the risk of femoral neck fracture. Perhaps some of the unique complications associated with HRA can be explained by understanding how reduced femoral version (femoral retroversion in extreme cases) impacts force transmission across the hip joint.

The purpose of this study was to quantitatively describe the biomechanical implication of varying femoral version (including femoral retroversion) on HRA with respect to impingement and force transmission across the joint. The secondary goal was to quantify the impact that different acetabular cup positions have on impingement and joint reaction forces. We hypothesize that pre-existing femoral retroversion leads to abnormal joint mechanics and could therefore be a risk factor for premature failure following HRA.

Materials and methods

Three-dimensional (3D) geometry of a right cadaveric donor hemipelvis and proximal femur was reconstructed from a CT-scan of 0.5 mm slice thickness to create a finite element (FE) model of the right hip joint. Segmentation was performed using the medical image processing software Mimics (Materialise, Belgium). All necessary measurements were performed using Geomagic (3D Systems, USA). The native femoral head and neck size were 54 mm and 42 mm, respectively. The native femoral neck-shaft angle was 125°, and the femoral neck version was 20°. A virtual model of a Birmingham Hip Resurfacing (BHR, Smith & Nephew Orthopaedics Ltd, Warwick, UK) was performed featuring a 54 mm femoral head and a 60 mm acetabular shell (Fig 1). The acetabulum was initially positioned in the standard position: 40° of inclination and 15° of version [19]. The femoral component was positioned, as per company standards, in slight valgus (-5°). The geometry of the femoral head was shaped to simulate the cylindrical and chamfer reamings performed during the usual surgical operation with a layer of cement between the femoral head and metal covering [20,21]. The thickness of the cement mantle was 0.5 mm and was simulated by brick solid elements.

Fig 1. Finite element (FE) model of the hip resurfacing arthroplasty (HRA).

Fig 1

The FE mesh was generated using Hypermesh (Altair, USA). Specific characteristics of different model parts and necessities of the model (along with the research objectives) were determinant in assigning the type of elements and their material properties. The cortical bone was meshed with 3-node shell elements with a uniform thickness of 1.5 mm, as previously described by Chegini et al, and filled with 4-node tetrahedral elements to represent cancellous bone [22]. The BHR implant and cement were meshed with 8-node hexahedral elements. In order to mesh the relatively thin implant (mesh it with several layers) and to manage the aspect ratio of the elements, we had to use very small size elements. The very fine mesh of this model made the mesh size effects negligible. There was no slippage between the femur, cement, and implant [23]. The cup was also secured to the acetabulum to restrict slippage. A surface-to-surface contact was considered between the outer surface of the head and inner surface of the cup with 80 μm of clearance [21]. This clearance was determined by property of contact element. The contact was defined by pairing two surfaces. When they got close to each other, at a defined distance of 80 μm, contact was detected. This was the initial distance that contact was initiated due to presence of fluid between the femoral head and acetabular cup. In addition, a frictional coefficient of 0.15 was considered between surfaces [24]. The cortical and cancellous bone were considered homogeneous (uniformly distributed density) with isotropic linear elastic material behaviour (Table 1). The polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) bone cement mantle and cobalt-chrome implant were modelled as isotropic linear elastic materials.

Table 1. Material properties of the FE model.

Components Element Type Young modulus E (GPa) Poisson Ratio
Cortical bone* (pelvis/femur) Shell (thickness: 1.5mm) 20 0.3
Cancellous bone* (pelvis/femur) Solid 1 0.3
Implant§ (head/cup) Solid 200 0.3
Cement§ Solid 2 0.19

*Adopted from: Chegini S, Beck M, Ferguson SJ. The effects of impingement and dysplasia on stress distributions in the hip joint during sitting and walking: A finite element analysis. J Orthop Res. 2009:27(2):195–201. [22].

§Adopted from: Sakagoshi D. Kabata T. Umemoto Y, et al. A mechanical analysis of femoral resurfacing implantation for osteonecrosis of the femoral head. J Arthroplasty 2010;25(8):1282–1289. [25].

The model did not account for movement through the sacroiliac joint or the pubic symphysis. These joints were fully constrained for the purpose of this study. The femur on the other hand, was kept free to move during loading. A concentrated load was applied to a reference point defined at the center of the femoral head (Fig 1). The applied load was adopted from in-vivo data of the peak hip contact force for three different loading conditions (Table 2): single leg stance (0° of hip flexion) during walking with a velocity of 1.09 m/s, climbing (45° of hip flexion), and sitting (90° of hip flexion) [13]. Center of rotation (COR) was determined by fitting a sphere over the femoral head.

Table 2. Loading conditions§.

Hip Position Percentage of body weight* Joint force (N)
Fx Fy Fz
0° Hip flexion 238% 443 266 1,920
45° Hip flexion 251% 492 510 1,974
90° Hip flexion 156% 359 6 1,253

§The applied load was adopted from in-vivo data of the hip contact force for three different loading conditions: Walking with a velocity of 1.09 m/s (0° of hip flexion), climbing (45° of hip flexion), and sitting (90° of hip flexion). Adopted from in-vivo data by Bergmann G, Deuretzbacher G, Heller M, et al. Hip contact forces and gait patterns from routine activities. J Biomechanics 2001;34(7):859–871. [26].

*Reference weight: 836N.

Cartesian coordinate system with X, Y, and Z, in lateral-medial, anterior-posterior and axial directions, respectively.

To address our research question, a total of 60 FE models were constructed in order to assess the effect of varying femoral versions on the different functional loads. All the analyses were performed on the same FE model which was reconstructed from the anatomic geometry of one cadaveric hemipelvis and proximal femur. The different variations in femoral version and acetabular cup inclination was taken into account by manual alterations. The proximal femur version was varied by rotating the femur in the axial plane around the COR between 30° of anteversion to 30° of retroversion. The different femoral versions studied were (1) 30° of anteversion, (2) 15° of anteversion, (3) 0° of version, (4) 15° of retroversion, and (5) 30° of retroversion (reported from now on as: AV30, AV15, RV0, RV15 and RV30, respectively). The neck-shaft angle was maintained at 125°. All models were tested with the acetabular cup in four different positions: (1) 40°/15° (inclination/version), (2) 40°/25°, (3) 50°/15°, and (4) 50°/25°. Differences in contact pressure (MPa), contact area (mm2), and impingement area (mm2) were measured for all the different models.

Two different approaches were used to investigate for impingement area and contact pressure. Firstly, geometrical analyses (using Hypermesh, Altair, USA) were performed to detect and quantify the joint impingement. This included virtually simulating hip flexion whereby the femur was flexed from 0° to 90° in the sagittal plane. By way of this simulation, the degree at which impingement occurred was determined. In addition, the areas on the acetabulum and femur where the impingement occurred was captured. Secondly, in order to calculate the contact pressure and contact distribution across the joint, nonlinear stress analyses were performed using the FE solver Abaqus (Dassault Systems Simulia Corp., USA). The contact was simulated across the inner acetabular cup surface only.

Results

Impingement analysis

Progressive femoral retroversion was found to cause a gradual increase in the impingement area. In addition, impingement occurred earlier in the flexion ROM with progressive femoral retroversion. In the most anteverted model (AV30), impingement occurred at 70° of hip flexion, whereas impingement occurred at 30° hip flexion with 30° of retroversion (RV30).

Interestingly, the area of impingement could be reduced by either increasing acetabular cup inclination (from 40° to 50°) and/or version (from 15° to 25°). This was appreciated regardless of femoral version (Fig 2). A 10° increase in both acetabular cup inclination and version had a cumulative effect and provided the most clearance during hip flexion, thus reducing the impingement area.

Fig 2. Impingement area at the anteroinferior femoral neck in relation to different femoral versions and degrees of hip flexion.

Fig 2

(A) Schematic design showing the change in the impingement area with progressive femoral retroversion (this example accounts for an acetabular cup in 40° of inclination and 15° of version). (B) Impact of different acetabular cup positions on impingement area: 40° of inclination and 15° of version (black line); 40° of inclination and 25° of version (red line); 50° of inclination and 15° of version (green line); 50° of inclination and 25° of version (blue line).

Contact pressure analysis

Negligible differences in contact pressures were seen in 0° or 45° of hip flexion across all femoral version models. However, there was a significant increase in contact pressure with progressive femoral retroversion when the hip was loaded at 90° of hip flexion (Fig 3). This trend was appreciated regardless of acetabular cup position. The RV30 model at 90° of hip flexion demonstrated the largest increase in contact pressure (18% increase) when the acetabular cup was set to 50° of inclination and 15° of version (6.3 MPa).

Fig 3. Contact pressure between the acetabular cup and head in different loading conditions and acetabular cup positions.

Fig 3

Acetabular cup is position with 40° of inclination and 15° of version (green line); 40° of inclination and 25° of version (black line); 50° of inclination and 15° of version (red line); 50° of inclination and 25° of version (blue line).

Contact area analysis

The distribution of contact area was assessed across all models (Fig 4). In 0° of hip flexion, the contact area was distributed over the superior and medial areas of both the acetabular cup and femoral head. Femoral version had negligible impact on the contact area across the joint in this condition. In 45° of hip flexion, the contact area progressively migrated more posterosuperior. In 90° of hip flexion, the contact area tended to concentrate more towards the anterior femoral bone-implant interface. With 30° of femoral retroversion the contact area was maximally concentrated and contact pressures were at their highest.

Fig 4. Illustration of the contact area across the acetabulum and head in different loading conditions.

Fig 4

Contact area across the HRA when the joint is loaded in 0°, 45°, and 90° of hip flexion is influenced by femoral version (this example accounts for an acetabular cup in 40° of inclination and 15° of version).

The effect of different acetabular cup positions on contact area was also examined (Fig 5). When loading the hip in 0° or 45° of flexion, contact area was reduced by 2–10% in all models where the acetabular cup inclination had been increased to 50°. Cup version was not found to have much influence on contact area. No difference was observed with different femoral versions in these conditions. Femoral version had a more noticeable influence on contact area when the hip was loaded in 90° of hip flexion.

Fig 5. Contact area between the acetabular cup and head in different loading conditions and acetabular cup positions.

Fig 5

Acetabular cup is position with 40° of inclination and 15° of version (green line); 40° of inclination and 25° of version (black line); 50° of inclination and 15° of version (red line); 50° of inclination and 25° of version (blue line).

Comparing the findings from Figs 3 and 5, there is an obvious inverse correlation between the smaller contact area created when the hip is loaded in 90° of flexion and the femur is 30° retroverted. This condition also was found to create the highest pressures across the HRA.

Discussion

Structural abnormalities of the proximal femur, particularly femoral retroversion, can contribute to the development of end-stage hip arthritis [18]. Pre-arthritic patients with femoral retroversion have profound loss of internal rotation at the hip in 90° of flexion and become symptomatic when the anterior femoral neck impinges on the anterior rim of the acetabulum. In light of this, femoral neck retroversion may exist in patients who receive a HRA, going un-noticed on initial evaluation because of stiffness attributed to the arthritic condition. Although component position has been identified as a risk factor for early failure following hip resurfacing, the impact of femoral version on HRA biomechanics remain elusive. Reduced femoral version (femoral retroversion in extreme cases) may be responsible for ongoing impingement and increase the risk of femoral neck fracture following surgery. Perhaps some of the unique complications of HRA can be explained by understanding how reduced femoral version impacts force transmission across the hip joint. To the best of our knowledge, this has never been reported. Our goal was to quantitatively describe the differences in force transmission across a hip joint with a resurfacing arthroplasty, and further understand the biomechanical implications of different femoral versions and different acetabular cup orientations on these forces.

Abnormal femoral version often alters motion of the hip and is associated with both intra-articular or extra-articular impingement. This computational analysis has shown that impingement significantly increases with progressive femoral retroversion, regardless of acetabular cup position. In addition, impingement occurred earlier in hip flexion ROM as the proximal femur was progressively retroverted. This was not observed then the hip was loaded in lower amounts of flexion (0° or 45° of flexion). Only in full hip flexion (90°) were contact areas impacted by progressive femoral retroversion. These became progressively more concentrated and subsequently contact pressures were measured to be much higher. This was most obvious when the femur was 30° retroverted.

Component malposition plays an important role in early failure of HRA. In fact, acetabular component malposition has been extensively studied. A poorly positioned acetabular cup can cause increased joint reactive forces and edge loading which can consequently lead to significant increase in implant wear—increasing metal-ion debris and possibly local tissue reactions [7,27]. Amstutz et al. suggested that increased acetabular inclination and anteversion was associated with increased wear, and thus recommended an optimal acetabular cup position of 42 +/- 10° of inclination and 15 +/- 10° of anteversion [7]. Any cup inclination above 50–55° has previously been associated with increased wear rates and increases in whole blood concentrations of cobalt and chromium ions after HRA [28,29]. The incidence of pseudotumours when the acetabular cup is positioned within optimal parameters (45° of inclination and 20° of anteversion) is four times lower (p = 0.007) than when outside these parameters [30]. Hart et al. sought to understand the variation in wear rates in a large series of 276 (138 femoral head and acetabular cup couples) retrieved metal-on-metal (MoM) hip arthroplasty components [15]. Through a multivariate analysis they found that edge-loading was the most important predictor of wear rate and occurred in two-thirds (88/138, 64%) of patients with failed MoM hip replacements. In those that edge-loading occurred, the likely factors involved are related to the patient (e.g., activity type), the surgery (e.g., cup orientation), and the manufacturing (e.g., cup coverage arc) [15].

While the consequences of acetabular cup malposition are well understood, recent studies have investigated the impact of femoral implant malposition on risk of failure [16,17]. Izmin et al. conducted a FE analysis to determine the bone damage that would result from different femoral implant malpositions relative to a natural femoral neck angle of 130°: varus (> 130°) and valgus (<130°) [16]. The simulation performed in the study represented physiological loading of a human. Their findings suggest that an implant in valgus position reduces the stress distribution and damage formation across the femur, thus reducing the potential for fracture. These finding are in keeping with those of other studies [17,31]. However, despite ongoing research in this field, little is known about the effect of abnormal femoral version on hip impingement and contact stresses following HRA.

To quantify the effect of femoral version on native hip contact stress, Meyer et al. used five cadaveric pelvis specimens which were mechanically tested in a heel-strike position [32]. Pressure measurements were recorded by the Tekscan sensor with the femur oriented in 0°, 15°, and 30° of anteversion. While they did not report any difference in average peak contact stresses between different femoral versions (anteverted: 4.59 MPa; normal: 4.66 MPa; retroverted: 4.59 MPa), they did not explore retroverted positions. While our study expands on current literature by quantitatively describing the biomechanical implication of different femoral versions in different physiological loading conditions, these findings are similar to what we report in these respective loading conditions. In addition, this study shows that femoral retroversion imparts important changes to the biomechanics of HRA, especially when the hip is loaded in 90° of flexion. With progressive femoral retroversion, contact pressure becomes concentrated at the anterolateral femoral bone-implant interface. This may contribute to accelerated wear and possibly to femoral neck fractures. Satpathy et al. reported increased contact pressures in native hips with femoral retroversion when the hip is flexed to 90° [33]. The wear rate of HRA has previously been shown to be directly related to changes in contact pressure between the metal components [22,33]. These findings are consistent with those reported in this study. Thus, higher contact pressures across the HRA in 90° of hip flexion are accentuated with femoral retroversion, and therefore can be a potential cause of accelerated wear rate. Distribution of the contact pressure also becomes critical as the location of the maximum contact pressure appears to move toward the head-neck junction. This focal loading across a smaller contact area may explain the increased risk of a femoral neck fracture following HRA. In addition, we have shown that acetabular inclination can be increased to 50° to compensate for the increase in impingement created with progressive femoral neck retroversion. However, doing so may cause further increase in contact pressure. Ultimately, successful HRA needs to balance hip biomechanics when the hip is loaded in extension and in flexion.

Prior to the onset of arthritis, patients with reduced femoral version or femoral retroversion significant femoral neck retroversion often present with impingement symptoms and can be identified by a careful clinical exam showing excessive external rotation of the hip and profoundly reduced internal rotation when the hip ROM is passively examined at 90° of hip flexion. These same patients often present with outward foot progression angles. Once the hip is severely arthritic and stiff, the above findings may not be as easily appreciated. The only way to accurately determine the femoral neck version is with a full length CT/MRI scan of the femur, incorporating the knee to correctly measure femoral version. Given the importance of femoral neck version on hip biomechanics, perhaps this parameter should be determined preoperatively prior to consideration for HRA. Patients with significantly reduced femoral neck version, or perhaps some degree of femoral retroversion, may be better served with a THA where more normal femoral version can be restored.

Our study is not without limitations. All the models were created from one base cadaveric hip. It is obvious that the hip joint of individuals may differ substantially and will have individual specific motion and loading patterns. However, in the lack of individual specific loading, it is not uncommon to apply an average in-vivo loading to all models [3234]. The loads placed when the hip was flexed to 90° was modelled to a static position (i.e. sitting in a chair). Much higher loads are expected to go through the joint during activities where the flexed hip is being used to support the body. Therefore, the magnitude of the contact pressures in such cases would be much greater than those reported in this study. Another limitation is that the pelvis was fixed and not given any freedom to move as it normally would in vivo—through its articulation with the lumbar spine. This motion influences the load transferred across the hip joint, thus creating a much more complex biomechanical relationship than what was reported in this study. Finally, we do not know how much correction of femoral version can be achieved during HRA. The BHR system was chosen as it continues to show excellent long-term results and is still being used in certain centers around the world [810,12,13,35].

It is possible that the ideal component placement to load a hip in extension may not be ideal for a hip loaded in flexion. It is likely that the best performing HRA strikes a compromise that optimizes force transmission and mechanics throughout the functional motion of the joint.

Conclusion

Reduced femoral version and in extreme cases, femoral retroversion, in HRA influences femoroacetabular impingement and increases joint contact pressure most when the hip is loaded in 90° of flexion. Attempting to compensate for this by increasing acetabular cup inclination does decrease the area of impingement but doing so causes a reciprocal increase in joint contact pressure. Ideal component position in HRA needs to consider both the socket and femoral anatomy and should strike a compromise that optimizes force transmission when the hip is loaded throughout the functional motion of the joint. Further research is needed to investigate whether or not these abnormal joint mechanics lead to early implant failure in patients with unrecognizedreduced femoral version. It may be advisable to study femoral neck version preoperatively to better choose hip resurfacing arthroplasty candidates.

Data Availability

All relevant data are within the paper.

Funding Statement

The author(s) received no specific funding for this work.

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Decision Letter 0

Jose Manuel Garcia Aznar

6 Jan 2021

PONE-D-20-34959

Computational Modelling of Hip Resurfacing Arthroplasty Investigating the Effect of Femoral Version on Hip Biomechanics

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Bourget-Murray,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Feb 20 2021 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

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If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Jose Manuel Garcia Aznar

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: No

**********

2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: I Don't Know

**********

3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The aim of this paper is to study the effect of the hip resurfacing position in the mechanical loading scenario manly related with hip contact pressure and hip impingement.

The paper is well write in English and structure is well defined.

The introduction presents a lack of other previous published works related with hip resurfacing offset and position.

The materials and methods presents a lack of information to understand the simulation and the results. Some important technical aspects are critical to analyze the results.

The results are in agreement with previous publications an presents an obvious situation, if the implant position reduces the contact area is obvious increase the contact stress.

Other important and critical aspect is the bone geometry, in the neck of femur and anatomic condition of one patient.

**********

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Reviewer #1: No

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PLoS One. 2021 May 27;16(5):e0252435. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0252435.r002

Author response to Decision Letter 0


30 Jan 2021

Dear Dr. Anzar,

RE: PONE-D-20-34959.

Thank you for reviewing the manuscript of our original research article entitled “Computational Modelling of Hip Resurfacing Arthroplasty Investigating the Effect of Femoral Version on Hip Biomechanics” for consideration for publication in the PLOS One.

After careful review of PLOS ONE’s publication criteria, we have edited our manuscript according to the journal’s standards. We hope you find the corrections within our revised manuscript acceptable. Notable changes include:

Level 1 heading used for all major sections. Bold type, 18pt font.

Level 2 heading used for all sub-sections of major sections. Bold type, 16pt font.

Figure citation corrected across all the text.

Each figure caption now appears directly after the paragraph in which they are first cited.

All figure titles are now bolded.

Tables are now presented directly after the paragraph in which they are first cited.

Tables are all cell-based.

References with more than six authors now list the first six author names, followed by “et al.”

The authors would also like to thank the reviewer and academic editor for their comments. We value your insightful input and have attempted to edit our manuscript in a way that reflects these.

Reviewer 1 comment: The introduction presents a lack of other previous published works related with hip resurfacing offset and position.

Author response: There is unfortunately a lack of scientific evidence regarding the impact of femoral retroversion on hip biomechanics and the impact of this hip resurfacing. The purpose of our Finite Element Analysis was to explore this in a computational model given the paucity of research in this field. Insight on femoral retroversion on HRA with respect to impingement and force transmission across the hip joint may encourage further clinical research in this field.

In light of your comment, we have edited our introduction in order to highlight this issue more clearly. We hope you appreciate the new changes.

Reviewer 1 comment: The materials and methods presents a lack of information to understand the simulation and the results. Some important technical aspects are critical to analyze the results.

Author response: We have reviewed our Materials and Methods section of our paper. The authors believed to have successfully explained both the computational model techniques used to create the finite element analysis as well as the different models analysed. Did the reviewer feel strongly about any specific aspect of the methods that may need clarity?

However, we have edited some parts of the methods in order to improve the understanding of our approach. We believe this now reads better and may facilitate understanding. Most of these edits are found in the last two paragraphs of the methods.

The authors wishes to thank both the reviewer and academic editor for their time in reviewing these changes. We hope these are satisfactory to proceed with publication in PLOS One. Should you have further comments of concerns, please feel free to contact us.

There have been no changes to our financial disclosures.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Bourget-Murray, MD CM FRCSC

Senior Orthopaedic Trauma Fellow

John Radcliffe Hospital | Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust

University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

Attachment

Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers_PLOSone.pdf

Decision Letter 1

Jose Manuel Garcia Aznar

17 Mar 2021

PONE-D-20-34959R1

Computational Modelling of Hip Resurfacing Arthroplasty Investigating the Effect of Femoral Version on Hip Biomechanics

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Bourget-Murray,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by May 01 2021 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

  • A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.

  • A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.

  • An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Jose Manuel Garcia Aznar

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

**********

2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Partly

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: N/A

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Specific comments:

Introduction

The introduction should updated to include some recent studies in Hip resurfacing position, manly the offset and acetabular position.

Uemura, K., Boughton, O.R., Logishetty, K., Halewood, C., Clarke, S.G., Harris, S.J., Sugano, N., Cobb, J.P. A single-use, size-specific, nylon arthroplasty guide: a preliminary study for hip resurfacing (2020) HIP International, 30 (1), pp. 71-77.

Izmin, N.A.N., Todo, M., Abdullah, A.H. Prediction of bone damage formation in resurfacing hip arthroplasty (2019) International Journal of Engineering and Advanced Technology, 9 (1), pp. 5879-5885.

Ramos, A., Soares dos Santos, M.P., Mesnard, M. Predictions of Birmingham hip resurfacing implant offset - In vitro and numerical models (2019) Computer Methods in Biomechanics and Biomedical Engineering, 22 (4), pp. 352-363.

Materials and METHODS

“….usual surgical operation with a layer of cement between the femoral head “

Please identify the thickness of cement mantle in the simulation. Is not an important aspect in the results of contact pressure and MOM.

“…The cortical bone was meshed with 3-node shell elements with a uniform thickness of 1.5mm, …”

Justify why use this option, because the CT scan presents the cortical and cancellous bone? This cortical is important in the model stiffness and can change the results?

“….. The BHR implant and cement were meshed with 8-node hexahedral elements….”

Why the authors use tetrahedral linear elements in the bone and hexahedral elements in the cement?

Why use tetramesh in the bones? and not a solid body if the results are only in the contact between hip resurfacing components

“…., hence the results were insensitive to the mesh size …” what kind of results in this model was insensitive to the mesh size?

To determine the contact area in the hip resurfacing the mesh size is important?

“…..inner surface of the cup with 80μm of clearance….”

Please explain that, because is important to identify the mesh size to guarantee that clearance, 0.08mm.

“… A concentrated load was applied to a reference point defined at the center of the femoral head….”

This point seams the most critical in the study. In addition, is not well defined where the load is applied? In the femoral neck?

“..RV0,..” Please change for neutral

“….This included simulation of hip flexion up to 90° through a virtual maneuver of the femur in the sagittal plane….”

Explain how do you detect the contact?

What is the tolerance? How the model calculate the volume of impingement?

DISCUSSION

The authors do not compare the results of contact stress with other studies.

“…….However, our study does present results of a hip that is loaded in three different positions, which is unparalleled to any previous study.”

This sentence is not true, the published papers presented always 3 direction loads

Reviewer #2: I reviewed a revised version of this paper not being the original reviewer. The paper reads well and to me is clear. Authors seems to have addressed the original reviewer comments which seems to be very minor. In such cases I respect the original review and response and avoid any further comment. However, in this case I would be grateful if authors can add a few lines to the limitations of this paper saying that no direct validation was performed here or somewhere just comment on how confident they are as per validity of the FE results. I understand that the relative comparisons that authors have made remains valuable and perhaps valid.

**********

7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

PLoS One. 2021 May 27;16(5):e0252435. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0252435.r004

Author response to Decision Letter 1


16 Apr 2021

Dear Dr. Anzar,

PONE-D-20-34959R1

Thank you for reviewing the revised manuscript of our original research article entitled “Computational Modelling of Hip Resurfacing Arthroplasty Investigating the Effect of Femoral Version on Hip Biomechanics” for consideration for publication in the PLOS One.

We have carefully reviewed all reviewer comments and addressed all of these. We are convinced this will satisfy Reviewer #1’s comments on our methodology. In fact, there have been notable changes in our Methods sections. Please see below for the list of edits.

Reviewer #1: Specific comments:

Introduction

We have updated our introduction and have included two recent studies as suggested:

Izmin NAN, Todo M, Abdullah AH. Prediction of bone damage formation in resurfacing hip arthroplasty. International Journal of Engineering and Advanced Technology 2019;9(1): 5879-5885.

Ramos A, Soares dos Santos MP, Mesnard M. Predictions of Birmingham hip resurfacing implant offset - In vitro and numerical models. Comput Methods Biomech Biomed Engin. 2019 Mar;22(4):352-363.

The main changes are found in the second paragraph of the introduction, which now reads:

“In light of these adverse events, several studies have identified risk factors attributed to early failure, which include: implant design, component position and size, female sex, patient age, and surgeon inexperience [8,12,15-17]. As a means to investigate the association between femoral implant malposition on damage formation of the femur, a recent finite element analysis was developed. This model was developed from a 47-year old patient’s computed tomography (CT) image and the loading simulation was that of normal walking condition. The analysis showed that the model experienced the most damage when the femoral head implant was in varus position (>130°), but was reduced significantly when the implant was placed in valgus position (<130°) [16]. On the other hand, Ramos et al. developed experimental and numerical models to analyze whether the positioning of the resurfacing head implant is important in the distribution of bone strains and in the risk of fracture of the femur [17]. They found that valgus position reduces strain distribution in the medial aspect of the femur and brings about a lower shear stress, thus reducing the risk of femoral neck fracture. However, despite appropriate patient selection and precise implant positioning, there continues to be a subset of patients who experience early failure following HRA. Structural abnormalities of the hip may serve as an explanation for some of these failures.”

Materials and METHODS

“….usual surgical operation with a layer of cement between the femoral head “

Please identify the thickness of cement mantle in the simulation. Is not an important aspect in the results of contact pressure and MOM.

The thickness of cement mantle was 0.5 mm. We used one layer of brick solid elements to simulate the cement layer and the minimum size of the elements was 0.5 mm.

“…The cortical bone was meshed with 3-node shell elements with a uniform thickness of 1.5mm, …”

Justify why use this option, because the CT scan presents the cortical and cancellous bone? This cortical is important in the model stiffness and can change the results?

The reviewer is absolutely right about the cortical thickness and its stiffness; however, it does not affect/change results of this research. Thickness of the cortical bone along with its material property determines its stiffness and affects the developed stresses. Since the load was applied as a concentrated force to the head center, there was no developed stresses in the cortical bone. In this research we did not investigated the bone stresses. We only focused on the stresses between the implant head and cup (contact pressure). When reconstructing the cortical bone, its superficial surface was very important for us so we could capture the impingement.

“….. The BHR implant and cement were meshed with 8-node hexahedral elements….”

Why the authors use tetrahedral linear elements in the bone and hexahedral elements in the cement?

Why use tetramesh in the bones? and not a solid body if the results are only in the contact between hip resurfacing components

Our preferred mesh was structured mesh with hexahedral elements technically and computationally. The difference between bone and cement which determined their mesh type was their geometry. The cement was geometrically very regular so we could use structured mesh with hexahedral elements. While cancellous bone had irregular shape and difficult to be meshed using hexahedral elements.

As the reviewer commented, the bone was not the main focus of this research. If assigning the rigid body we still could perform the analyses and calculate the contact pressure between implant head and cup. In our model both options (rigid body bone or meshed bone) were almost the same in a computational point of view (computational time and size). We used meshed bone model as the preferred one so we could use the same model in future projects were the bone stress is in demand.

“…., hence the results were insensitive to the mesh size …” what kind of results in this model was insensitive to the mesh size?

To determine the contact area in the hip resurfacing the mesh size is important?

The results were insensitive to the mesh size because we had to use very fine mesh (if the mesh was coarse it definitely could affect the results). In order to mesh the relatively thin implant (mesh it with several layers) and to manage the aspect ratio of the elements, we had to use very small size elements. Finer mesh although affects the results, but negligibly in our case.

“…..inner surface of the cup with 80μm of clearance….”

Please explain that, because is important to identify the mesh size to guarantee that clearance, 0.08mm.

Despite real geometry of other elements of the model, its contact elements were virtual. The clearance of 0.08mm, was determined by property of contact element, not its geometry. In this way, the clearance of the contact became independent from mesh size. We defined the contact by pairing to surfaces. When these two surfaces were getting close together, at one defined distance (which was defined to be 0.08mm in our model) the contact was detected.

“… A concentrated load was applied to a reference point defined at the center of the femoral head….”

This point seams the most critical in the study. In addition, is not well defined where the load is applied? In the femoral neck?

As shown in Fig. 1 (tip of the white arrow), the load was applied as a concentrated force to a single point located on the center of femoral head.

“….This included simulation of hip flexion up to 90° through a virtual maneuver of the femur in the sagittal plane….”

Explain how do you detect the contact?

What is the tolerance? How the model calculate the volume of impingement?

Impingement analysis was performed using Hypermesh (Altair, USA) using virtual maneuver of the femur simulating flexion up to 90°. By this simulation, the angle of flexion at which impingement started was detected and area of impingement was calculated each case. For each case, the flexion rotation was simulated from 1° to 90° at 1 degree rotation steps (the tolerance of rotation). At each step, "trim with surfs/plane" was used. If two surfaces (surface of femoral neck and surface of cup) penetrated each other, then both surfaces would be trimmed; otherwise they would be remained intact. If the surfaces were trimmed, then the trimmed surface and the volume between two surfaces could be selected and area and volume of impingement could be calculated.

Discussion

We have also updated our discussion as per the reviewer’s suggestions.

Reviewer #2: I reviewed a revised version of this paper not being the original reviewer. The paper reads well and to me is clear. Authors seems to have addressed the original reviewer comments which seems to be very minor. In such cases I respect the original review and response and avoid any further comment. However, in this case I would be grateful if authors can add a few lines to the limitations of this paper saying that no direct validation was performed here or somewhere just comment on how confident they are as per validity of the FE results. I understand that the relative comparisons that authors have made remains valuable and perhaps valid.

The Authors

Attachment

Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers_PLOSone_April2021.docx

Decision Letter 2

Jose Manuel Garcia Aznar

17 May 2021

Computational Modelling of Hip Resurfacing Arthroplasty Investigating the Effect of Femoral Version on Hip Biomechanics

PONE-D-20-34959R2

Dear Dr. Bourget-Murray,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #2: N/A

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Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #2: I have no further comment on this paper, a valuable study for the literature on biomechanics of hip resurfacing.

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Reviewer #2: No

Acceptance letter

Jose Manuel Garcia Aznar

19 May 2021

PONE-D-20-34959R2

Computational modelling of hip resurfacing arthroplasty investigating the effect of femoral version on hip biomechanics

Dear Dr. Bourget-Murray:

I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org.

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Kind regards,

PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff

on behalf of

Dr. Jose Manuel Garcia Aznar

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Associated Data

    This section collects any data citations, data availability statements, or supplementary materials included in this article.

    Supplementary Materials

    Attachment

    Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers_PLOSone.pdf

    Attachment

    Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers_PLOSone_April2021.docx

    Data Availability Statement

    All relevant data are within the paper.


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