Abstract
Introduction
Within the reconstruction of unicondylar femoral bone defects with morselized bone grafts in revision total knee arthroplasty (TKA), a stem extension appears to be critical to obtain adequate mechanical stability. Whether the stability is still secured by this reconstruction technique in bicondylar defects has not been assessed. Long, rigid stem extensions have been advocated to maximize the stability in revision TKAs. The disadvantage of relatively stiff stem extensions is that bone resorption is promoted due to stress shielding. Therefore, we developed a relatively thin intramedullary stem which allowed for axial sliding movements of the articulating part relative to the intramedullary stem. The hypothesis behind the design is that compressive contact forces are directly transmitted to the distal femoral bone, whereas adequate stability is provided by the sliding intramedullary stem. A prototype was made of this new knee revision design and applied to the reconstruction of uncontained bicondylar femoral bone defects.
Materials and Methods
Five synthetic distal femora with a bicondylar defect were reconstructed with impacted bone grafting (IBG) and this new knee revision design. A custom-made screw connection between the stem and the intercondylar box was designed to lock or initiate the sliding mechanism, another screw (dis)connected the stem. A cyclically axial load of 500 N was applied to the prosthetic condyles to assess the stability of the reconstruction. Radiostereometry was used to determine the migrations of the femoral component with a rigidly connected stem, a sliding stem and no stem extension.
Results
We found a stable reconstruction of the bicondylar femoral defects with IBG in case of a rigidly connected stem. After disconnecting the stem, the femoral component showed substantially more migrations. With a sliding stem rotational migrations were similar to those of a rigidly connected stem. However, the sliding stem allowed proximal migration of the condylar component, thereby compressing the IBG.
Discussion
A stable reconstruction of uncontained bicondylar femoral defects could be created with IBG and a TKA with a thin stem extension. It appeared that the presence of a functional stem extension was important for the stability of the bicondylar reconstruction. In an effort to reduce stress shielding, we developed a sliding stem mechanism. This sliding stem provided adequate stability, while compressive contact forces are still transmitted to the distal femoral bone. Clinical studies have to confirm that our sliding stem mechanism leads to long term bone maintenance after revision TKAs.
