Fuji film and ultrasound measurement of total knee arthroplasty contact areas

This article describes tibiofemoral contact area measurement results from t ests on 1 commercial total knee arthroplasty (TKA) using 2 experimental met hods-fuji film and diagnostic ultrasound. The study presents a novel diagno stic ultrasound technique developed specifically fur measuring TKA contact areas. Because most experimental investigations have been concerned with in terimplant comparison, this article is one of few parametric TKA studies in the literature. Fuji film and ultrasound provide lower and upper bound con tact area measurements based on their physical operating principles; this i mplies that no single measurement method can be relied on exclusively to gl ean contact area data. Designers should be cautious in using contact area a nd contact stress as the exclusive predictors of TKA failure.