Background: Low postoperative pain level, decreased length of hospital stay and accelerated rehabilitation are the major benefits of unicondylar knee arthroplasty. Especially in comparably young, not yet retired and still active patients with an isolated medial gonarthrosis, these prostheses offer many advantages. However, one important requirement to be treated with such implants is a well functioning stability system of the muscles and ligaments. Thus in patients with degenerated or destroyed anterior cruciate ligaments it is contraindicated to use this method. In order to still take advantage of this therapy for treatment of isolated arthrosis, reestablishment of the proprioceptive structures through simultaneous or staged ACL reconstruction is mandatory.
Patients and methods: Pursuing this goal we performed unicondylar knee arthroplasty with simultaneous ACL reconstruction on eligible patients. Between 2003 and 2006 we treated 32 knees with this combined surgery and followed them for a mean of 31 months (range: 10-38).
Results: The mean Knee Society Score significantly improved from 83.2 (44-103) to 167.6 (145-177) at a mean follow-up of 31 months (10-38).
Conclusions: Preliminary results of this short-term follow-up are promising. Especially the predominant number of patients who were able to return to work soon after rehabilitation and the significantly improved score postoperatively reflect the benefits of this prosthesis system in select patients. However, long-term follow-up and larger case numbers are necessary to confirm these encouraging results in the future.