PARTICAL KNEE REPLACEMENT SURGERY
It is not unusual for one of the three compartments of the knee, the inside (medial), outside (lateral), or front (patellofemoral) to lose its cartilage from osteoarthritis. This usually leads to pain located in that area.
The reason for one compartment to fail may be the overall alignment of your leg or the way that the muscles, tendons and ligaments control the knee.
If your symptoms and signs are severe and you have full thickness loss of cartilage in that compartment you may be suitable for a partial replacement. Some damage in the rest of your knee may be acceptable too.
Partial knee replacements create a new joint in a specific part of the knee. The implant is made from a metal alloy with a hardened plastic as the new bearing surface. They have many benefits over total knee replacements with an expected faster recovery and a return to a higher level of function.
- Medial Unicompartmental Joint Replacement/Arthroplasty (UKA/UKR). It is most common for the medial inside of the joint to wear first giving characteristic pain well located on the inside of the knee often worse when pressure is placed there such as lying on your side
- Lateral Unicompartmental Joint Replacement/Arthroplasty (UKA/UKR). Far less common than the lateral side making suitability less likely but a potentially excellent solution for isolated pain on the outside of your knee
- Patellofemoral Joint Replacement/Arthroplasty (PFJA/PFJK). Isolated osteoarthritis in the front can have the best results from non-operative management but in resistant cases replacing just the back of the patella and the trochlea groove that it runs in will spare the hinged weightbearing (tibiofemoral) part of the joint
If you are booked for a knee replacement this article will help you prepare: BLOG