A study revealed that orthopedic surgeons may inadvertently cause undesirable outcomes for patients during knee joint replacements, and the study indicated that a more considerate approach to each patient’s condition may be beneficial.
During these operations, surgeons usually try to position the hip, knee, and ankle in a straight line. A study published in The Bone and Joint Journal concluded that this is a bad idea if these parts of the body are not in a straight line from the beginning.
The study of 231 patients who underwent knee replacement surgery for osteoarthritis showed that those who had their knee alignment changed reported significantly worse outcomes when asked an average of four years after the procedure.
People who underwent an alignment change, as shown on pre- and post-operative X-rays and measured by a knee alignment classification system, reported more problems and less ability to adapt to their prosthetic knee during daily activities in questionnaires intended to evaluate their condition years later.
In the future, researchers call for knee alignment measurement to be incorporated into preoperative planning steps and for each patient’s original alignment to be the goal of surgery using robot-assisted technology.
“In future clinical practice, our results may help surgeons in preoperative planning,” study co-author Dr. Toshiki Konishi of Kyushu University Hospital in Japan said in a statement. “A case-by-case approach to knee alignment could become the new quality standard in orthopedic surgery.”