Author:

Keywords:

UKA, overstuffing, understuffing, tibial stress, collateral ligament strain, Science & Technology, Life Sciences & Biomedicine, Orthopedics, UNICOMPARTMENTAL KNEE ARTHROPLASTY, FOLLOW-UP, NUMERICAL SENSITIVITY, 3-DIMENSIONAL MODEL, JOINT REPLACEMENT, STRESS-ANALYSIS, TIBIAL PLATEAU, EARLY FAILURE, 10-YEAR, BEHAVIOR, Arthroplasty, Replacement, Knee, Cadaver, Equipment Design, Finite Element Analysis, Humans, Knee Joint, Ligaments, Medial Collateral Ligament, Knee, Models, Theoretical, Osteoarthritis, Polyethylene, Reproducibility of Results, Stress, Mechanical, Tibia, 0903 Biomedical Engineering, 1103 Clinical Sciences, 3202 Clinical sciences, 4003 Biomedical engineering

Abstract:

The aim of this study was to quantify the effects of understuffing and overstuffing UKA on bone stresses, load distribution and ligament strains. For that purpose, a numerical knee model of a cadaveric knee was developed and was validated against experimental measurements on that same knee. Good agreement was found among the numerical and experimental results. This study showed that, even if a medial UKA is well-aligned with normal soft tissue tension and with correct thickness of the tibia component, it induces a stiffness modification in the joint that alters the load distribution between the medial and lateral compartments, the bone stress and the ligament strain potentially leading to an osteoarthritic progression.