Flatfoot Modeling and Surgical Simulation Based on Finite Element Method

― Towards Patient-Specific Surgery ―

Abstract

As the first step towards patient-specific flatfoot surgery, this paper presented the finite element (FE) models of one flatfoot and one healthy foot and their weight-bearing simulations. The FE models were validated by comparing the plantar stress distributions between simulations and experiments. Stress transition trends towards healthy foot was summarized. Through simulations of medializing calcaneal osteotomy (MCO), we evaluated the influences of four surgical parameters. We found that the transverse osteotomy angle β and the translation distance d significantly affected the surgical performances. However, the surgical influence of the sagittal osteotomy angle α and the osteotomy position p can be ignored. In future, by increasing the number of case studies and utilizing postoperative data, we will further validate our FE models and the feasibility of surgical simulations. This work aims at providing useful information regarding optimal surgery and surgical parameters to flatfoot surgeons through FE simulations for realizing patient-specific surgery.