Lateral Approach to Total Knee Arthroplasty: Minimal Soft Tissue Invasion

Abstract

Utilizing standard approaches to total knee replacements have led to excellent short-term and long-term results with survival rates over 95% at 10 years and greater in multiple studies [2, 5, 6, 8, 12, 14, 16]. However, in the short term, these procedures lead to tremendous amount of morbidity with rehabilitative efforts that may take 3 months or more. There is a tremendous amount of pain associated with this procedure and patients will often need 1–2 h of physical therapy per day for the first 6 weeks after these procedures to lead to optimal results. In addition, some patients will need further operative procedures, i.e. manipulations, to obtain optimal results. Furthermore, the functional outcomes of patients with these procedures may not be as optimal as what has been reported in the literature. In a number of papers looking at patient-related outcomes, it appears that between 20 and 40% of patients are not completely satisfied with their total knee replacement [3, 4, 18]. The total knee replacement limits various functional activities. Multiple studies have described a discrepancy between how the surgeons perceive total knee replacement outcomes and how patients believe they have done.