Posterior stabilized total knee arthroplasty increases the risk of postoperative periprosthetic fractures

Background The Insall-Burstein posterior-stabilized knee design was first developed in 1978 by adding a central cam mechanism to the articular surface geometry of the total condylar prosthesis to correct its problems being not “rolling back”. Since then, the use of posterior-stabilized (PS) implants in total knee arthroplasty (TKA) is becoming increasingly popular. However, one of the main disadvantages of PS designs is related to the amount of bone removed during femoral box osteotomy to create the housing of the PS mechanism, the clinical value of removing more or less bone during primary TKA remains to be fully established. The objective of this study was to compare the incidence of early postoperative periprosthetic fractures in the cruciate retaining (CR) and posterior stabilized (PS) knee prosthesis. Methods An institutional high volume arthroplasty unit database was reviewed to identify all patients who sustained a postoperative periprosthetic fracture following primary TKA between January 2014 and May 2018. A retrospective chart review was performed to collect clinical, radiographic, and operative report data. A total of 352 patients with 600 primary TKAs were identified. (300 cases of cruciate retaining TKAs from 178 patients and 300 cases of posterior stabilized TKAs from 174 patients) were retrospectively reviewed. Results Eleven patients (1.83%) sustained periprosthetic fractures in the postoperative setting following primary TKA. All of the fractures were located on the femur and were treated surgically. Only one knee (one patient) from the CR group sustained a periprosthetic fracture, while 10 knees (from 10 patients) from the PS group sustained a fracture. The relative risk of sustaining a fracture in the CR group was 0.10 times relative to the PS group (RR   =   0.10, 95% CI 0.0129 – 0.776). Conclusion Posterior stabilized total knee arthroplasties (TKAs) significantly increase the risk of periprosthetic fractures in obese Asian patients compared to cruciate retaining TKAs.