The influence of surgical malalignment on the contact pressures of fixed and mobile bearing knee prostheses--a biomechanical study.
OBJECTIVE
To investigate the effect of surgical malalignment on contact pressures of fixed and mobile bearing knee prostheses.


METHODS
An experimental set-up was used to measure contact pressure on the tibial component of fixed and mobile bearing knee prostheses subjected to a compression load and surgical malalignment situations were simulated.


BACKGROUND
Mobile bearing knee prostheses were designed to decrease tibiofemoral contact pressure by providing both high congruity and mobility. It was also assumed to accommodate surgical malalignment. However, few studies have reported the effect of malalignment of the tibiofemoral joint on contact pressure of fixed and mobile bearing knee prostheses.


METHODS
Surgical malalignment situations were simulated to evaluate contact characteristics of tibial component of fixed and mobile bearing knee prostheses. The simulated malalignment conditions include the medial-lateral translation (0.5 and 1 mm), anterior-posterior translation (2 and 4 mm) and internal-external rotation (1 degrees, 3 degrees, 5 degrees and 10 degrees ) of the femoral component relative to the tibial component. Fuji pressure sensitive film was used to measure the contact pressure.


RESULTS
The greatest increase of maximum contact pressure in the anterior-posterior maltranslation was 7.63% and 7.62% relative to the neutral contact situation in the fixed and mobile bearing designs respectively. In the medial-lateral maltranslation, there was 23.3% in the fixed bearing design and was 22.0% in the mobile bearing design. In the internal/external malrotation, the greatest increase of maximum contact pressure in the fixed bearing design was 27.1%, which was much higher than the mobile bearing design (22.4%).


CONCLUSIONS
The mobile bearing design can reduce maximum contact pressure more significantly than the fixed bearing design when malalignment conditions of the tibiofemoral joint occurs, especially in the internal/external malrotation. The mobile bearing design offers the advantage of self-adjusting over the fixed bearing design to accommodate surgical malalignment.


CONCLUSIONS
This study revealed that the mobile bearing design has smaller maximum contact pressures than the fixed bearing design in knee prosthesis under malalignment biomechanical tests. This result indicates that there is an advantage for a mobile bearing design over a fixed bearing design to accommodate malalignment conditions caused by surgical technique or soft tissues imbalance in total knee arthroplasty.
Cheng
Cheng-Kung
CK
Orthopaedic Biomechanics Laboratory, Institute of Biomedical Engineering, National Yang Ming University, No. 155, Sec. 2, Li-Nung Street, Shih-Pai, 11221, Taipei, Taiwan. ckcheng@ortho.ym.edu.tw
Huang
Chang-Hung
CH
Liau
Jiann-Jong
JJ
Huang
Chun-Hsiung
CH
D019645:Arthroplasty, Replacement, Knee; D019245:Compressive Strength; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D007719:Knee Joint / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000601:surgery; D007720:Knee Prosthesis / Q000145:classification*; D019300:Medical Errors; D009038:Motion; D011312:Pressure; D011474:Prosthesis Design; D011475:Prosthesis Failure; D016059:Range of Motion, Articular; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013314:Stress, Mechanical; D013977:Tibia / Q000503:physiopathology; D016474:Weight-Bearing