Tibiofemoral kinematics in healthy and osteoarthritic knees during twisting.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine the kinematics of healthy knees and those with osteoarthritis (OA), during twisting using density-based image-matching techniques.

Methods: Five healthy subjects and 26 patients with medial knee OA performed twisting under periodic X-ray imaging.

Results: The tibiofemoral rotation at the ipsilateral/contralateral twist in healthy and OA knees were 11° ± 9.3° externally/9.5° ± 5.6° internally (p < 0.05) and 4.4° ± 7.2° externally/2.7° ± 8° internally (p < 0.05), respectively.

Conclusions: The kinematic analysis of OA knees during twisting revealed significantly smaller tibiofemoral rotation than those of healthy knees.