Facts & Figures

Personalized TKR alignment improves functional outcomes


This systematic review of alignment options in TKR describes a technique that: “like partial replacement techniques for knees… is a ‘patient specific’ and ‘ligament sparing’ technique to restore… the native pre-arthritic limb and joint alignments and knee laxity…”1


According to the authors, this technique was shown

  • To enable faster recovery,
  • Deliver better functional outcomes,
  • And lower rates of residual pain,
    compared to mechanical alignment.

At short-term follow-up (max 2 years), reoperation and revision rates were similar.

Better functional scores were attributed to the nature of the technique, which is a “true knee resurfacing” and “almost a pure bone procedure” that “reproducibly restores the patient-specific femorotibial joint obliquity and soft-tissue laxity, to generate better knee kinematics, and potentially less knee balance complications compared to mechanically aligned TKR.”

Check out the paper for:

  • A detailed description of the technique
  • A summary of the benefits and potential concerns
  • An algorithm for patient selection/exclusion
  1.  Rivière C, Iranpour F, Auvinet E, Howell S, Vendittoli PA, Cobb J, Parratte S. Alignment options for total knee arthroplasty: A systematic review. Orthop Traumatol Surg Res. 2017 Nov;103(7):1047-1056. doi: 10.1016/j.otsr.2017.07.010. Epub 2017 Aug 31. PMID: 28864235. Find the source here.

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