Evaluation of 3D Footprint Morphology of Knee-Related Muscle Attachments Based on CT Data Reconstruction: A Feasibility Study

TL;DR

This study explores the 3D structure of knee muscle attachment sites using CT scans to improve musculoskeletal modeling accuracy.

Contribution

The study introduces a reliable method to reconstruct 3D muscle attachment footprints from CT data for musculoskeletal modeling.

Findings

Pes anserinus insertions and M. biceps femoris origins showed high variability (mean 56% and 54%, respectively).

Vastus muscle origins and Achilles tendon insertion showed low variability (mean 9% and 13%, respectively).

Attachment site variations exceeded individual bone morphology differences in most cases.

Abstract

A three-dimensional (3D) understanding of muscle attachment footprints became increasingly relevant for musculoskeletal modeling. The established method to project attachments as points ignores patient-specific individuality. Research focuses on investigating certain muscle groups rather than comprehensively studying all muscles spanning a joint. Therefore, we present a reliable method to study several muscle attachments in order to reconstruct the attachment sites in 3D based on CT imaging for future applications in musculoskeletal modeling. For the present feasibility study, 23 knee-related muscle attachments were CT-scanned postmortem from four nonadipose male specimens. For this, the specific muscle attachments were dissected and marked with a barium sulfate containing paint (60 g BaSO4 in 30 mL water and 10 mL acrylic paint). Subsequently, bone geometries and muscle attachments were reconstructed and evaluated from CT datasets. Bone morphology and footprint variations were studied. Exemplarily, variations were high for pes anserinus insertions (mean 56%) and the origins of M. biceps femoris (mean 54%). In contrast, the origins of the vastus muscles as well as the insertion of the Achilles tendon showed low variation (mean 9% and 13%, respectively). Most attachment sites showed variation exceeding the individuality of bone morphology. In summary, the present data were consistent with the few published studies of specific muscle footprints. Our data shed light on the high variability of muscle attachments, which need to be addressed when studying muscle forces and movements through musculoskeletal modeling. This is the first step to achieving a more profound understanding of muscle morphology to be utilized in numerical simulations.

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