Aims: Unicompartmental knee arthroplasty (UKA) and total knee arthroplasty (TKA) have both been shown to be effective treatments for osteoarthritis (OA) of the knee. Many studies have compared the outcomes of the two treatments, but less so with the use of robotics, or individualized TKA alignment techniques. Functional alignment (FA) is a novel technique for performing a TKA and shares many principles with UKA.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAims: Functional alignment (FA) in total knee arthroplasty (TKA) aims to achieve balanced gaps by adjusting implant positioning while minimizing changes to constitutional joint line obliquity (JLO). Although FA uses kinematic alignment (KA) as a starting point, the final implant positions can vary significantly between these two approaches. This study used the Coronal Plane Alignment of the Knee (CPAK) classification to compare differences between KA and final FA positions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Functional alignment (FA) strives to balance the knee soft-tissue envelope during total knee arthroplasty (TKA) using implant alignment adjustments rather than soft-tissue releases. There is a debate on how best to achieve FA. We compared minimum two-year outcomes between FA with a mechanical alignment plan [FA(m)] and FA with a kinematic alignment plan [FA(k)].
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Ideal goals for alignment and balance in total knee arthroplasty (TKA) remain controversial. We aimed to compare initial alignment and balance using mechanical alignment (MA) and kinematic alignment (KA) techniques and to analyze the percentage of knees that could achieve balance using limited adjustments to component position.
Methods: Prospective data on 331 primary robotic TKAs (115 MAs and 216 KAs) were analyzed.