The influence of surgical malalignment on the contact pressures of fixed and mobile bearing knee prostheses - a biomechanical study

Objective. To investigate the effect of surgical malalignment on contact pressures of fixed and mobile bearing knee prostheses. Design. An experimental set-up was used to measure contact pressure on the tibial component of fixed and mobile bearing knee prostheses subjected to a compression load and surgical malalignment situations were simulated. Background. Mobile bearing knee prostheses were designed to decrease tibiofemoral contact pressure by providing both high congruity and mobility. It was also assumed to accommodate surgical malalignment. However, few studies have reported the effect of malalignment of the tibiofemoral joint on contact pressure of fixed and mobile bearing knee prostheses. Methods. Surgical malalignment situations were simulated to evaluate contact characteristics of tibial component of fixed and mobile bearing knee prostheses. The simulated malalignment conditions include the medial-lateral translation (0.5 and 1 mm), anterior-posterior translation (2 and 4 mm) and internal-external rotation (1degrees, 3degrees, 5degrees and 10degrees) of the femoral component relative to the tibial component. Fuji pressure sensitive film was used to measure the contact pressure. Results. The greatest increase of maximum contact pressure in the anterior-posterior maltranslation was 7.63% and 7.62% relative to the neutral contact situation in the fixed and mobile bearing designs respectively. In the medial-lateral maltranslation, there was 23.3% in the fixed bearing design and was 22.0% in the mobile bearing design. In the internal/external malrotation, the greatest increase of maximum contact pressure in the fixed bearing design was 27.1%, which was much higher than the mobile bearing design (22.4%). Conclusions. The mobile bearing design can reduce maximum contact pressure more significantly than the fixed bearing design when malalignment conditions of the tibiofemoral joint occurs, especially in the internal/external malrotation. The mobile bearing design offers the advantage of self-adjusting over the fixed bearing design to accommodate surgical malalignment.