Biomechanical analysis of tibial insert under varus tilt after medial unicompartmental knee arthroplasy

The development of artificial joints is now considered to be quite mature, and is the main treatment for osteoarthritis. However, in recent unicompartmental knee arthroplasty clinical follow-ups, complications due to the wearing of polyethylene (PE) tibial components still exist. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to analyze the relation between insert wearing and components alignment in unicompartmental knee prostheses (UKP) by finite element analysis. This study evaluates the angles after correction of varus deformity and posterior tibial slope (PTS), the results show that the varus tilt should be less than 10°, the excessive posterior tibial slope should be avoided, too. Otherwise the wear of the PE tibial components will increase and thus shorten the expectancy of joint protheses.