Intraoperative measurements of knee motion in total knee arthroplasty

A photostereometric technology-based knee motion analysis system was developed and intraoperative kinematics during total knee arthroplasty (TKA) was investigated. Ten knees were evaluated and two different types of posterior-cruciate-retaining TKA (Genesis-I and Genesis-II) were used. Both TKA showed posterior translation of the medial and lateral femoral condyle with knee flexion. The motion pattern of the estimated contact point of Genesis-II was small initial rollback followed by sliding motion, then rollback again more than 60 degrees. In Genesis-II, the amount of translation of the medial condyle was significantly larger than that of the lateral, suggesting that the lateral condyle acted as a rotational pivot. Our developed knee motion analysis system was non-contact, high resolution and can evaluate both kinematics and estimated contact pattern. The results of this study suggest that intraoperative measurement using this analysis system has advantages for the investigation of in-vivo kinematics and contact condition in TKA.