Quality Improvement of Knee Resurfacing with the Galileo Navigation System

Summary form only given. Clinical Problem: the knee joint has in the femur as well as tibia very long leaver arms. Therefore a misalignment of only 2 degrees of the femur already results with a 2 cm distance of the mechanical axis to the centre of the femoral head. This leads to an asymmetric load distribution and so increased wear. Material and methods: the Galileo Navigation system allows the kinematic determination of the rotation centre of the femur head and the morphometric determination of the centre of the knee and ankle. Additional the loss of accuracy is reduced by avoiding femoral resection data transfer to conventional resection guide. The data are directly transferred to a minirobot fixed on the same clamp as the femur navigation locator and so a very precise resection is performed. We use this navigation technique in all resurfacing and rotation hinge knee prosthesis since the year 2000 in now more than 1000 cases. 211 patients operated from April 2001 to June 2003 were evaluated clinical and radiological. 134 women mean age 71 and 77 men mean age 70 years were examined. Conclusions: in not navigated series on example Lerch reported in 2003 in 6% of the cases more than 5 degree o misalignment. This improves also mobility of the patient and reduces the risk of early failure due to increased wear, resurfacing and rotation hinge knee prosthesis since the year 2000 in now more than 1000 cases. 211 patients operated from April 2001 to June 2003 were evaluated clinical and radiological. 134 women mean age 71 and 77 men mean age 70 years were examined. Results: 95% of all patients sowed maximum of +- 0.5Degrre of varus or valgus deviation. Only 3 % sowed more than 1 degree of deviation. Only 6% showed a flexion under 90 degree.