Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Surgical complications may be avoided by preoperative templating in trauma hemiarthroplasty. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Digital templates for the Stryker™ range of Thompson's prostheses were created and fifty trauma patients that had undergone cemented hemiarthroplasty were retrospectively templated by 2 blinded surgeons. RESULTS: Templating for prosthesis size was highly accurate with excellent Inter and intra-observer reproducibility. Sensitivity for identifying femoral canals too narrow for a Thompsons was 100%. CONCLUSIONS: Templating is a valuable tool and should be standard practice in trauma. We have demonstrated that it is possible to generate custom templates to allow accurate templating.