RESEARCH ARTICLE
Unicompartmental Knee Resurfacing: Enlarged Tibio-Femoral Contact Area and Reduced Contact Stress Using Novel Patient-Derived Geometries
Nick Steklov1, John Slamin2, Sudesh Srivastav3, Darryl D’Lima*, 1
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2010Volume: 4
First Page: 85
Last Page: 92
Publisher ID: TOBEJ-4-85
DOI: 10.2174/1874120701004010085
Article History:
Received Date: 16/11/2009Revision Received Date: 2/2/2010
Acceptance Date: 10/2/2010
Electronic publication date: 12/3/2010
Collection year: 2010
open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
Advances in imaging technology and computer-assisted design (CAD) have recently enabled the introduction of patient-specific knee implant designs that hold the potential to improve functional performance on the basis of patient-specific geometries, namely a patient-specific sagittal and coronal curvature, as well as enhanced bone preservation. The objective of this study was to investigate the use of a novel implant design utilizing a patient specific sagittal J-curve on the femoral component combined with a novel constant, patient-derived femoral coronal curvature and to assess tibio-femoral contact area and contact stress on a femur matched curved tibial polyethylene insert.
Mean contact area and standard deviations were 81±5, 96±5 and 74±4 mm2 for the heel strike, toe off and mid-stance positions, respectively. Mean contact stress and standard deviations were 23.83±1.39, 23.27±1.14 and 20.78±0.54 MPa for the heel strike, toe off and mid-stance positions, respectively. Standard deviations of the measurements were small, not exceeding 6-7% confirming the consistency of loading conditions across different flexion angles. The results were comparable to those reported for standard, off-the-shelf fixed-bearing implants with paired femoral and tibial geometries. These data show that a constant coronal curvature can be applied to a patient-specific implant by measuring coronal curvatures across the femoral condyle in each patient and by deriving an average curvature. This novel approach combines unique benefits of patient-specific geometry with proven design concepts for minimizing polyethylene wear.
