title: Complications resulting from tracker pin-sites in computer navigated knee replacement surgery.
abstract: Intra-osseous pin sites used in Computer Navigated knee Arthroplasty are known to cause complications including infection, neurovascular injury, thermal necrosis and peri-prosthetic fracture. Many studies have looked at ways of reducing these risks to improve results in computer-navigated surgery. We present our complication rates and techniques used to reduce complications in a retrospective study of 321 patients performed by a single surgeon in between 2009 and 2013. One patient was identified with a superficial pin site infection. No major complications were recorded during a mean follow up period of 31 months. Attention to detail in every aspect of pin insertion reduces the rates of both minor and major complications. In particular rates of peri-prosthetic fracture were shown to be lower when using a uni-cortical drilling technique compared with the use of bicortical drilling in other studies.
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Thomas
authors.forename: Gopalakrishna
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Pemmaraju
authors.forename: Gurpreet
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Nagra
authors.forename: James
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bassett
authors.forename: Shreeram
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Deshpande
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D019645:Arthroplasty, Replacement, Knee / Q000009:adverse effects* / Q000379:methods; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011183:Postoperative Complications / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology*; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D025321:Surgery, Computer-Assisted / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000295:instrumentation*; D006113:United Kingdom / Q000453:epidemiology