Abstract
It is important to remember that osteoarthritis is a noninflammatory condition that can affect 1, 2 or all 3 compartments of the knee. Moreover, this disease is a continuum from very mild to very severe involvement of the soft tissue, articular cartilage and bone. For this reason, a variety of nonsurgical and surgical options are indicated. The rheumatologist and/or orthopedist must understand the stage of the disease and fit that both to the pathology, age, activity level, and functional needs of the patient. For that reason, each of the options discussed today have an indication.
The important issue about tricompartmental replacement is that we have improved technology and technique and the indications of today are broader than those of 20 years ago. Hopefully, they will continue to evolve both in terms of materials and instruments. The American Rheumatologic Association (ARA) has stated that joint replacement has been the major improvement in the care of the arthritic patient. The tricompartmental solution is the treatment of choice in patients with inflammatory arthritis such as rheumatoid arthritis as well as the solution in osteoarthritic patients with tricompartmental disease. There is an indication for osteotomy, unicompartmental replacement and perhaps patellofemoral replacement. I think the next frontier will be to find disease modifying osteoarthritic drugs (DMOADS) that will provide disease intervention as the DMARDs have done in rheumatoid arthritis. Moreover, cartilage repair combined with osteotomy will hopefully allow us to prevent progression of this disease.
