Magnitude of Limb Lengthening After Primary Total Knee Arthroplasty
Section snippets
Patients and Methods
We retrospectively identified patients by reviewing the consecutive case logs of 2 experienced total joint surgeons between March 2007 and October 2007. Patients were included if they had preoperative and postoperative, full-length, standing radiographs, with a 10-cm radiographic marker. Because of ordering errors on some patients' films, approximately 10% of patients on the case logs reviewed did not have either preoperative or postoperative leg length films taken. The requisite films had been
Results
In this study, 85 (83.3%) of the 102 knees comprising the entire study group showed increased limb length after TKA (Table 2). Average lengthening was 6.3 mm (SD, 6.85 mm; range, −11.0 to 24.0 mm). Mean postoperative alignment was 0.98° (SD, 3.15°).
Fifty-two (78.7%) of 66 knees in the varus group showed increased limb length after TKA. The average lengthening was 5.2 mm (SD, 5.76 mm; range, −6.8 to 18.2 mm). Average mechanical alignment preoperatively was 8.7° of varus preoperatively and 2.1°
Discussion
Studies in the orthopedic surgery literature describe the problems resulting from limb-length changes after total hip arthroplasty (THA) 7, 8, 9, 10. Since the basic principles of joint restoration are similar, we investigated the frequency and characteristics of limb-length changes occurring after TKA. Our aims for this study were to (1) detect the frequency of limb lengthening after TKA, (2) determine if preoperative varus versus valgus deformity influences postoperative limb length, (3)
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The Conflict of Interest statement associated with this article can be found at doi:10.1016/j.arth.2011.06.008.