Learning Curve With Minimally Invasive Unicompartmental Knee Arthroplasty
Abstract
This study examined 445 consecutive minimally invasive unicompartmental knee arthroplasties (UKAs) from one institution to determine whether revision and reoperation rates would decrease as the number of cases performed increased, indicating the presence of a learning curve with this procedure. At a mean of 3.25 years, 26 knees required revision yielding an overall revision rate of 5.8%; survivorship at 2 years with revision as an end point was 96% ± 1.7%. Both revisions and reoperations decreased over time but not significantly. For the first half of UKA cases performed vs the second half, revision rates fell from 5.0% to 2.5%, and reoperation rates fell from 8.1% to 5.4%. These data demonstrate that despite modifications made to improve surgical technique across time, a substantial complication rate with this procedure persists.
Keywords: minimally invasive, unicompartmental, knee arthroplasty, learning curve
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This research was conducted by the Anderson Orthopedic Research Institute and was made possible, in part, by general research funding provided by the Inova Health System and by a cooperative agreement that was awarded and administered by the US Army Medical Research and Materiel Command and the Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center, under contract number W81XWH-05-2-0079.
PII: S0883-5403(09)00177-6
doi:10.1016/j.arth.2009.05.011
© 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
