Background: Osteoarthritis is often found in weight-bearing joints, the knee being the most common site. Most patients of symptomatic osteoarthritis of knee are associated with varus malalignment that is causative or contributory to painful arthritis. Correcting the malalignment of the knee relieves symptoms by transferring the functional load to the unaffected compartment. The goal of the treatment is to relieve medial compartment knee pain and slow down the arthritic progression. We report the outcome of a simple technique of medial opening wedge high tibial osteotomy in treating the medial compartment osteoarthritis of the knee.
Materials and method: A prospective interventional study was carried out over a period of 2 years from November 2017 to October 2019 in a sample size of randomly selected 41 patients having unilateral knee osteoarthritis. All patients after a proper preoperative assessment underwent high tibial osteotomy and the outcome was evaluated using knee society scoring system.
Results: The age of the patients ranged from 40 – 65 years with a mean age of 51 years, 13 were males and 28 were females showing female predominance (68.2%). The mean knee score and the mean functional score of the patients before surgery were 60 and 61.95 respectively and post operatively at the end of 6 months the knee score and functional score was 77 and 80.53 respectively. By the end of 6 months out of 41 patients, 12 patients (29.2%) had excellent functional outcome, 18 patients (43.90%) had good functional outcome, 09 patients (21.95%) had fair functional outcome while only 02 patients (04.87%) had poor functional outcome.
Conclusions: The present study shows that HTO is a good option in isolated medial compartment OA of knee. Significant increase in the knee score and functional score was found after high tibial osteotomy for the patients of osteoarthritis with varus deformity. Success of high tibial osteotomy relies on appropriate patient selection, proper osteotomy type and precise surgical technique.
Inter-laboratory comparison of knee biomechanics and muscle activation patterns during gait in patients with knee osteoarthritis