Total knee arthroplasty (TKA) is usually the treatment of choice for severe osteoarthritis (OA) of the knee. Numerous clinical studies of TKA have shown high rates of long-term joint survival with good function [1]. Nevertheless, alternatives to this established procedure are being increasingly considered for several reasons. Postoperatively, patients frequently experience a slow rehabilitation and do not fully recover normal function [2]. Moreover, there is a growing pressure to reduce operating time while increasing the use of less invasive surgical techniques.
We began this study to investigate the feasibility of an Early Intervention (EI) device for medial OA, where we propose intervening at an early stage of the OA degenerative process. While there are other conservative treatments available, particularly unicompartmental arthroplasty (UKA), and more recently Conformis and Arthrosurface designs, our proposed design has certain unique characteristics.
In particular, the EI design is an even more conservative...
