INTRODUCTION. The literature suggests a survivorship of unicompartmental knee arthroplasties (UKA) for spontaneous osteonecrosisof the knee range from 93% to 96.7% at 10 to 12 years. However, these data arise from series reporting 23 to 33 patients, jeopardizing meaningful conclusions. OBJECTIVES. Our purpose is to examine a long term survivorship of UKA's in a larger group of patients with SPONK, along with their subjective, symptomatic and functional outcome; to determine the percentage of failures and the reasons for the same in an attempt to identify relevant indications, contraindications, and technical parameters in treating SPONK with a modern implant design. METHODS. We retrospectively evaluated 84 patients with late-stage spontaneous osteonecrosis of the knee who had a medial UKA from 1998 to 2005. All patients had preoperative MRI to confirm the diagnosis, exclude metaphyseal involvemente, and confirm the absence of major degenerative changes in the lateral and patellofermoal compartment. Mean age at surgery was 66 years and mean body mass index was 28.9. A Kaplan-Meier survival analysis was conducted using revision for any reason as the end point. The minimum followup of 63 months (mean, 98 months; range, 63–145 months). RESULTS. The 10-year survivorship was 92%. Ten revisons were performed and the most common reasons for revision were subsidence of the tibial component (four) and aseptic loosening of the tibial component (three). No patient underwent revision for osteoarthritis progression in the lateral or patellofemoral compartment. There was a statistically significant difference between postoperative VAS, KSS, WOMAC, Oxford, Range of Motion and Tibial Slope (overcorrected by 3.7 degrees, p< 0.0023) between the survivors and the failures. CONCLUSION. SPONK may be an optimal indication for UKA provided
The mean age of patients with osteonecrosis reported in series in our literature is 38 to 53. Thus, performing a total hip replacement on a patient who would need a procedure to last 40–45 years is a concern. Patients with osteonecrosis of the hip require some type of surgical treatment. Without treatment, a large majority of femoral heads in patients even with Ficat stage I osteonecrosis will collapse or become symptomatic. A common scenario is a patient who first presents to the orthopaedic surgeon with severe arthritis
The mean age of patients with osteonecrosis reported in series in our literature is 38 to 53. Thus, performing a total hip replacement on a patient who would need a procedure to last 40–45 years is a concern. Patients with osteonecrosis of the hip require some type of surgical treatment. Without treatment, a large majority of femoral heads in patients even with Ficat stage I osteonecrosis will collapse or become symptomatic. A common scenario is a patient who first presents to the orthopaedic surgeon with severe arthritis
Introduction:. A surgical hip dislocation provides circumferential access to the femoral head and is essential in the treatment pediatric and adult hip disease. Iatrogenic injury to the femoral head blood supply during a surgical may result in the osteonecrosis of the femoral head. In order to reduce vessel injury and incidence of AVN, the Greater Trochanteric Osteotomy (GTO) was developed and popularized by Ganz. The downside of this approach is the increased morbidity associated with the GTO including non-union in 8% and painful hardware requiring removal in 20% of patients. (reference) Recent studies performed at our institution have mapped the extra-osseous course of the medial femoral circumflex artery and provide surgical guidelines for a vessel preserving posterolateral approach. In this cadaveric model using Gadolinium enhanced MRI, we investigate whether standardized alterations in the postero-lateral surgical approach may reliably preserve femoral head vascularity during a posterior surgical hip dislocation. Methods:. In 8 cadaveric specimens the senior author (ES) performed a surgical hip dislocation through the posterolateral approach with surgical modifications designed to protect the superior and inferior retinacular arteries. In every specimen the same surgical alterations were made using a ruler: the Quadratus Femoris myotomy occurred 2.5 cm off its trochanteric insertion, the piriformis tenotomy occurred at its insertion and extended obliquely leaving a 2 cm cuff of conjoin tendon (inferior gemellus), and the Obturator Externus (OE) was myotomized 2 cm off its trochanteric insertion. (Figure 1) For the capsulotomy, the incision started on the posterior femoral neck directly beneath the cut obturator externus tendon and extending posteriorly to the acetabulum. Superior and inferior extensions of the capsulotomy ran parallel to the acetabular rim creating a T-shaped capsulotomy. After the surgical dislocation was complete, the medial femoral circumflex artery (MFCA) was cannulated and Gadolinium-enhanced MRI performed in order to assess intra-osseous femoral head perfusion and compared to the gadolinium femoral head perfusion of the contra-lateral hip as a non-operative control. Gross-dissection after polyurethane latex injection in the cannulated MFCA was performed to validate MRI findings and to assess for vessel integrity after the surgical dislocation. Results:. In 8 cadaveric specimens MRI quantification of femoral head perfusion was 94.3% and femoral head-neck junction perfusion was 93.5% compared to the non-operative control. (Figure 2) Gross dissection after latex injection into the MFCA demonstrated intact superior and inferior retinacular arteries in all 8 specimens. (Figure 3). Discussion and Conclusions:. In this study, perfusion to the femoral head and head-neck junction is preserved following posterior surgical dislocation through the postero-lateral approach. These preliminary findings suggest that specific surgical modifications can protect and reliably maintain vascularity to the femoral head after surgical hip dislocation. This approach may benefit hip resurfacing and potentially decease risk of femoral neck fracture