[Experiences with lateral unicondylar prostheses]

Unicompartmental osteoarthritis of the knee joint affects the medial compartment more often than the lateral compartment whereby the lateral is solely affected in only 5-10 % of cases. In this case unicompartmental knee arthroplasty has been shown to be an effective alternative to total knee arthroplasty. There are some basic anatomical and biomechanical differences between the medial and lateral compartment of the knee joint which directly influence modern surgery techniques and implant design. In general, kinematics and design are fundamentally different in mobile-bearing compared to fixed-bearing prostheses.

This article presents a summary of outcome and survival rates after unicompartmental knee arthroplasty in the lateral compartment.

This article is based on a literature search in the PubMed database for clinical results after lateral unicompartmental knee arthroplasty.

The results demonstrate that lateral unicompartmental knee arthroplasty with a mobile-bearing implant and a domed tibial plateau design gives an excellent clinical outcome while reducing the dislocation rate to an acceptable level in the short and mid-term. Published data on the clinical outcome of fixed-bearing lateral unicompartmental knee arthroplasty prostheses revealed heterogeneous results due to the inclusion of different implant designs and relatively small patient cohorts. Nevertheless, most of them demonstrated good clinical results with a longer follow-up than current studies concerning mobile-bearing prostheses.

Based on the published data it is not possible to demonstrate precise differences in clinical outcome and survival rates after mobile-bearing and fixed-bearing unicompartmental knee arthroplasty or to make clear recommendations on the use of each type of prosthesis.