Medial opening-wedge high tibial osteotomy fixation with short plate without any graft, synthetic material or spacer

Medial opening-wedge high tibial osteotomy (MOWHTO) is an effective surgical procedure for patients who have medial compartmental osteoarthritis of the knee with varus deformity of the limb. The abnormal load on the medial compartment of the knee is directed to the lateral compartment with this procedure. A gap occurs on the proximal tibia while providing adequate correction. Filling this gap with bone grafts or synthetic materials has gained wide acceptance for preventing bone union problems or osteotomy site collapse. The aim of this study is to report our results of MOWHTOs performed without any bone graft or any other synthetic materials.

We evaluated 41 MOWHTOs that have been performed between 2009 and 2012 with no use of any grafts or synthetic materials and spacer. Age of the patients ranged from 43 to 67. Thirty-five of the patients were females and three of them were males. The follow-up time was 6 months.

Seven knees had opening at the osteotomy site <10 mm, 26 knees had 10-12.5 mm, and eight knees had >12.5 mm (range 7.5-14 mm, mean 11.07 mm). All osteotomies united without loss of correction. The mean bone union time was 12.8 weeks. We did not have any major complication regarding the technique.

The results of our study have shown that we can achieve satisfactory and good results by performing MOWHTO procedure without using any bone grafts or synthetic materials and spacer.