Step-by-step measurements of soft tissue balancing during total knee arthroplasty for patients with varus knees
Related Experiment Video
Updated: Sep 7, 2026
Individualized Stem-positioning in Calcar-guided Short-stem Total Hip Arthroplasty
Published on: February 27, 2018
Kazuyoshi Yagishita1, Takeshi Muneta, Hiroo Ikeda
1Department of Orthopedic Surgery, School of Medicine, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, 1-5-45 Yushima, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8519, Japan.
Abstract:
Using a step-by-step procedure, we measured joint gap during surgery using a simple device with a torque meter in 45 osteoarthritis knee joints (43 patients) with varus deformity. The effects of specific cuts or releases of the anatomic portion on joint gaps were investigated. Each cut or release resulted in various increases in the medial gap from 1.2 to 3.8 mm on average. The final gap measurements averaged 24.1 mm medially and 27.6 mm laterally in extension, and 24.6 mm medially and 27.2 mm laterally in flexion. The results of the measurements showed that each step-by-step procedure had a tendency of gap increase. The results led us to measure soft tissue balancing in a step-by-step procedure during total knee arthroplasty.
