A 5 TO 7 YEARS FOLLOW-UP OF 102 CEMENTLESS SYNATOMIC KNEE ARTHROPLASTIES

One hundred and two cementless Synatomic(R) total knee prostheses were implanted in our hospital between January 1987 and October 1989. All knees were retrospectively followed up for five to seven years and exa mined for both pre- and postoperative clinical or radiological factors indicating aseptic loosening. The overall survival of the implants wa s 88.6 %. The mean preoperative tibiofemoral angle of 178.5 degrees wa s found to be corrected immediately postoperatively to 183.4 and at th e latest review to 182.3 degrees, with a slight shift towards varus wh ich in the case of femoral component further increased during follow-u p (P < 0.05). No correlation was found between tibiofemoral alignment and overall joint survival. Improvement of the preoperative marked (ov er 12 degrees) tibiofemoral valgus alignment correlated to clinical fa ilure (P < 0.05). No such correlation was observed in pronounced varus knees (P = 0.897). A clear correlation was observed between the clini cal outcome and the knee joint (P < 0.05) and function (P < 0.05) scor es. Especially pain correlated closely with survival.