Study of the interactions between proximal femur 3d bone shape, cartilage health, and biomechanics in patients with hip Osteoarthritis

In this study quantitative MRI and gait analysis were used to investigate the relationships between proximal femur 3D bone shape, cartilage morphology, cartilage biochemical composition, and joint biomechanics in subject with hip Osteoarthritis (OA). Eighty subjects underwent unilateral hip MR-imaging: T1ρ and T2 relaxation times were extracted through voxel based relaxometry and bone shape was assessed with 3D MRI-based statistical shape modeling. In addition, 3D gait analysis was performed in seventy-six of the studied subjects. Associations between shape, cartilage lesion presence, severity, and cartilage T1ρ and T2 were analyzed with linear regression and statistical parametric mapping. An ad hoc analysis was performed to investigate biomechanics and shape associations. Our results showed that subjects with a higher neck shaft angle in the coronal plane (higher mode 1, coxa valga), thicker femoral neck and a less spherical femoral head (higher mode 5, pistol grip) exhibited more severe acetabular and femoral cartilage abnormalities, showing different interactions with demographics factors. Subjects with coxa valga also demonstrated a prolongation of T1ρ and T2. Subjects with pistol grip deformity exhibited reduced hip internal rotation angles and subjects with coxa valga exhibited higher peak hip adduction moment and moment impulse. The results of this study establish a clear relationship between 3D proximal femur shape variations and markers of hip joint degeneration—morphological, compositional, well as insight on the possible interactions with demographics and biomechanics, suggesting that 3D MRI-based bone shape maybe a promising biomarker of early hip joint degeneration.