Preliminary development of Asian-specific statistical humeral implants towards minimally invasive implant positioning

Implant positioning is highly depending on the morphological matching between the patient anatomical structure and the implants. This paper is investigating the Asian-specific humeral implant development towards more consistent and accurate implant positioning in minimally invasively ways. Humeral implants are currently readily available and used on patients, however these implants are not compatible to every patient, especially the Asian patients due to the difference in the bone size and structure. Surgeons had to consistently modify the surgery which brought a lot of inconvenience to both the patient and the surgeon. The construction of an Asian atlas based implant has therefore been proposed to eradicate this problem. With an Asian atlas, new implants specifically for Asians could be designed and created. Prelude to the design of the implant, data clustering and extraction of the relevant curvature have to be carried out. In this paper, the progress made up to now regarding the design of the implant based on the Asian atlas will be reviewed.