Results of Total Knee Replacement

Abstract

Since 1981, the Kodama-Yamamoto Knee Prostheses have been used in our hispital.
We studied forty-nine knees in thirty-six patients whom we had been able to follow up for at least one year. Thirty knees in twenty-three patients were osteoarthritis, and nineteen in thirteen were rheumatoid arthritis. The average age of the patients in the study group was 66.7 years at the time of surgery. The average follow-up period was 3.0 years.
There were thirty-four knees with a patellar replacement and fifteen without. Forty-three knees (87.8%) could obtain good or excellent clinical results, but the postoperative average flexion range of knee was 88.7°, which was not a satisfactory result. Furthermore clinical results were studied between the group of patellar replacement and the one without it. In the group of rheumatoid arthritis, some cases without patellar replacement complained of peripatellar pain postoperatively. No complication of patellar replacement was found in our study. The clinical results were good and stable in the group of patellar replacement.
Therefore we recommend the patellar replacement for total knee prosthesis, especially in rheumatoid arthritic patients.