Influence of intra-operative joint gap on post-operative flexion angle in osteoarthritis patients undergoing posterior-stabilized total knee arthroplasty

• Published in: Knee surgery, sports traumatology, arthroscopy : official journal of the ESSKA Vol. 15; no. 8; pp. 1013 - 1018
• Main Authors: Matsumoto, Tomoyuki, Mizuno, Kiyonori, Muratsu, Hirotsugu, Tsumura, Nobuhiro, Fukase, Naomasa, Kubo, Seiji, Yoshiya, Shinichi, Kurosaka, Masahiro, Kuroda, Ryosuke
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Germany Springer Nature B.V 01.08.2007
• Subjects: Aged; Arthroplasty (knee); Arthroplasty, Replacement, Knee - methods; arthroscopy; Balance; Evaluation; Feasibility Studies; Female; Femur - surgery; Flexibility; Follow-Up Studies; Humans; Joint Prosthesis; Joint surgery; Joints; Kinematics; Knee; Knee Joint - physiopathology; Knees; Monitoring, Intraoperative; Movement; Osteoarthritis; Osteoarthritis, Knee - surgery; Osteotomy - methods; Patella - surgery; Patients; Prosthesis Design; Range of Motion, Articular - physiology; Reproducibility of Results; Rotation; Soft tissues; Sports; Sports medicine; Surgery; Surgery, Computer-Assisted; Tibia - surgery; Treatment Outcome
• ISSN: 0942-2056; 1433-7347
• DOI: 10.1007/s00167-007-0331-y

Recently, we developed a new tensor for total knee arthroplasty (TKA) procedures enabling soft tissue balance assessment throughout the range of motion while reproducing post-operative joint alignment with the patello-femoral (PF) joint reduced and the tibiofemoral joint aligned. Using the tensor with a computer-assisted navigation system, we investigated the relationship between various intra-operative joint gap values and their post-operative flexion angles. An increased value during the extension to flexion gap and a decreased value during the flexion to deep flexion gap with PF joint reduced, not everted, showed an inverse correlation with post-operative knee flexion angle, not pre-operative flexion angle. In conclusion, understanding the characteristics of joint gap kinematics in posterior-stabilized TKA under physiological and reproducible joint conditions may enable the prediction of the post-operative flexion angle and help to determine the appropriate intra-operative joint gap.