The Effect of Mechanical Axis Correction on the Incidence of Aeseptic Loosening after TKA

Restoration of a neutral mechanical axis has been a widely held tenet of primary total knee arthroplasty (TKA), however new technologies are recently being marketed which claim correction of alignment deformity is unimportant. There is little published evidence to support the importance of achieving a neutral axis for minimizing risk of aseptic component loosening, in part because of the difficulty inherent in the study of rare outcomes. This study was undertaken to determine whether the outcome of aseptic loosening was associated with mechanical axis mal-alignment within a closely followed cohort of 1,030 TKAs with 5 to 9.5 yrs follow-up (minimum 5 yrs).