Trauma and orthopaedics is the largest of the
surgical specialties and yet attracts a disproportionately small
fraction of available national and international funding for health
research. With the burden of musculoskeletal disease increasing,
high-quality research is required to improve the evidence base for
orthopaedic practice. Using the current research landscape in the
United Kingdom as an example, but also addressing the international
perspective, we highlight the issues surrounding poor levels of
research funding in trauma and orthopaedics and indicate avenues
for improving the impact and success of surgical musculoskeletal
research. Cite this article:
The optimal management of the tibial slope in
achieving a high flexion angle in posterior-stabilised (PS) total
knee replacement (TKR) is not well understood, and most studies
evaluating the posterior tibial slope have been conducted on cruciate-retaining
TKRs. We analysed pre- and post-operative tibial slope differences,
pre- and post-operative coronal knee alignment and post-operative
maximum flexion angle in 167 patients undergoing 209 TKRs. The mean
pre-operative posterior tibial slope was 8.6° (1.3° to 17°) and
post-operatively it was 8.0° (0.1° to 16.7°). Multiple linear regression
analysis showed that the absolute difference between pre- and post-operative
tibial slope (p <
0.001), post-operative coronal alignment (p
= 0.02) and pre-operative range of movement (p <
0.001) predicted post-operative
flexion. The variance of change in tibial slope became larger as
the post-operative maximum flexion angle decreased. The odds ratio
of having a post-operative flexion angle <
100° was 17.6 if the
slope change was >
2°. Our data suggest that recreation of the anatomical
tibial slope appears to improve maximum flexion after posterior-stabilised
TKR, provided coronal alignment has been restored. Cite this article:
