The medial-stabilised (MS) knee implant, characterised by a spherical medial condyle on the femoral component and a medially congruent tibial bearing, was developed to improve knee kinematics and stability relative to performance obtained in posterior-stabilised (PS) and cruciate-retaining (CR) designs. We aimed to compare in vivo six-degree-of-freedom (6-DOF) kinematics during overground walking for these three knee designs. Seventy-five patients (42 males, 33 females, age 68.4±6.6 years) listed for total knee arthroplasty (TKA) surgery were recruited to this study, which was approved by the relevant Human Research Ethics committees. Each patient was randomly- assigned a PS, CR or MS knee (Medacta International AB, Switzerland) resulting in three groups of 23, 26 and 26 patients, respectively. Patients visited the Biomotion Laboratory at the University of Melbourne 6±1.1 months after surgery, where they walked overground at their self-selected speed. A custom Mobile Biplane X-ray (MoBiX) imaging system tracked and imaged the implanted knee at 200 Hz. The MoBiX system measures 6-DOF tibiofemoral kinematics of TKA knees during overground gait with maximum RMS errors of 0.65° and 0.33 mm for rotations and translations, respectively.INTRODUCTION
METHODS
Accurate knowledge of knee joint kinematics following total knee arthroplasty (TKA) is critical for evaluating the functional performance of specific implant designs. Biplane fluoroscopy is currently the most accurate method for measuring 3D knee joint kinematics in vivo during daily activities such as walking. However, the relatively small imaging field of these systems has limited measurement of knee kinematics to only a portion of the gait cycle. We developed a mobile biplane X-ray (MoBiX) fluoroscopy system that enables concurrent tracking and imaging of the knee joint for multiple cycles of overground gait. The primary aim of the present study was to measure 6-degree-of-freedom (6-DOF) knee joint kinematics for one complete cycle of overground walking. A secondary aim was to quantify the position of the knee joint centre of rotation (COR) in the transverse plane during TKA gait. Ten unilateral posterior-stabilised TKA patients (5 females, 5 males) were recruited to the study. Each subject walked over ground at their self-selected speed (0.93±0.12 m/s). The MoBiX imaging system tracked and recorded biplane X-ray images of the knee, from which tibiofemoral kinematics were calculated using an image processing and pose-estimation pipeline created in MATLAB. Mean 6-DOF tibiofemoral joint kinematics were plotted against the mean knee flexion angle for one complete cycle of overground walking. The joint COR in the transverse plane was calculated as the least squares intersection of the femoral flexion axis projected onto the tibial tray during the stance and swing phases. The femoral and tibial axes and 6-DOF kinematics were defined in accordance with the convention defined by Grood and Suntay in 1983.INTRODUCTION
METHODS
