Abstract
Objectives
All Polyethylene Tibial components in Total Knee Arthroplasty have been in use for some years, studies showing equivalent results to Total Knee Arthroplasty (TKA) with metal-backed Tibial components at 10 years have shown no significant difference between the two on radiostereometric analysis and revision rates[1].
Post operative patient outcome data using standard metal-backed Tibial components is widely reported in the literature. This study is looking at patient outcomes following All-polyethylene tibial component TKA. We hypothesize that using standard patient outcome measures, an improvement comparable with that expected for metal-backed tibial component TKA will be shown with All-polyethylene tibial component TKA.
Methods
Between August 2006 and August 2008, 229 all-polyethylene tibial component TKA were implanted at the elective orthopedic unit. The choice of implant was entirely dependent on surgeon's preference.
Of the 229 patient's, 225 details were available for review, 27 did not wish to take part in the study and 1 patient died a year following surgery of an unrelated illness. The remaining 197 patients agreed to take part in the study.
The patient's were contacted either in person or over the telephone and asked to completed questionnaires for standard knee scoring.
These included: the Oxford Knee Score (OKS), the WOMAC Score and the SF-12 Score, both pre-operatively and post operatively.
Results
All three Scoring systems used showed an overall improvement post-operatively, as would be reasonably be expected.
The results for the OKS, WOMAC and SF-12 all showed an improvement comparable with that expected for metal-backed tibial component TKA.
Conclusions
Total Knee Arthroplasty using an all-polyethylene tibial component has been shown with these early results to be a reasonable alternative to metal-backed options offering some advantages. [1,2]
