Author(s)

Dawie van den Heever, Cornie Scheffer, Pieter Erasmus, Edwin Dillon

Department of Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa.
Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa.
Stellenbosch Medi-Clinic, Stellenbosch, South Africa.

It is suggested that unicompartmental knee replacement (UKR) offers the potential to restore normal knee kinematics better than total knee replacement (TKR) because of retaining the cruciate ligaments, and better preservation of the overall geometry. It was hypothesized that patient-specific UKR would restore normal knee kinematics even better because of a customised articular shape. A comparative kinematics study was conducted on three cadaver limbs using two different test setups, a loaded ankle rig and an unloaded ankle rig. Kinematics was compared between a patient-specific UKR and a conventional fixed-bearing UKR. Both the UKRs showed similar kinematic patterns to the normal knee using both the test apparatus. The patient-specific UKR showed good results and with the other benefits it shows potential to dramatically improve clinical outcomes of knee replacement surgery.

Tibiofemoral Kinematics; Patient-Specific Knee; Unicompartmental Knee Replacement

van den Heever, D. , Scheffer, C. , Erasmus, P. and Dillon, E. (2012) In vitro measurement of tibiofemoral kinematics after patient-specific unicompartmental knee replacement. Journal of Biomedical Science and Engineering, 5, 729-736. doi: 10.4236/jbise.2012.512091.