During total hip arthroplasty various femoral stem offsets are available. Additionally, the femoral stem can be placed in either varus or valgus. The overall effect of this is to increase or decrease the functional offset at the hip joint. To our knowledge no studies have concentrated on the effects of these variations in offset, if any, upon the loading and function of the knee joint. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects, if any, of reducing functional offset at the knee.

A computer model was constructed to study the effects of variations in functional offset in different anatomical settings.