Stefano Bini, M.D. and coauthors presented the results of a large study of unicompartmental knee replacement performed at the Kaiser Hospital System at the 22nd Annual Meeting of the Association of Hip and Knee Surgeons in Dallas, Texas, in November 2012. They reviewed all cemented partial knee replacements performed between 2001 and 2009, which included a group of 1, 746 partial knee replacements. The revision rate at almost 8 years followup was approximately 5%. They found that several factors were important in predicting failure. These included the patient less than 55 years of age, the individual who had more medical comorbidities and certain implant designs perform better than others. They also found that surgeons that perform fewer than 12 partial knee replacement per year had a higher failure rate than those who performed 12 or more partial knee replacements per year. As in all surgical cases there are multiple variables that affect outcome and again this study emphasizes the importance of surgeon experience and health of the patient in predicting outcomes of partial knee replacement.
William P. Barrett, MD
