Haptic Rendering of Arthroscopic Meniscus Examination in SOFA

Learning to distinguish between healthy and degenerative meniscus tissue is an important skill for orthopedic surgeons, as it could impact further treatment. Virtual simulations with kinesthetic haptic feedback offers a safe way of practicing this skill. This study demonstrates reality-based haptic rendering of arthroscopic meniscus examination using Simulation Open Framework Architecture (SOFA). Indentation elastic modulus and Poisson’s ratio was determined from biomechanical indentation tests on cadaveric meniscus specimens, and used in a real-time corotational finite element simulation with haptic feedback. The resulting contact force signal from the simulation was validated against experimentally obtained contact forces from probing on a cadaveric meniscus specimen. The simulation contact force signals in the normal direction were in well agreement with experimental data, with an average force of -4.16 N for the simulation, and -4.0 N for the experiment. The achieved refresh rate for the physics thread in the arthroscopic examination simulation scene was 25 Hz during contact, which is sufficient for real-time applications.