Relationship between patellar resurfacing and postoperative anterior knee pain in total knee arthroplasty

Abstract

Aims: To retrospectively demonstrate the effect of patellar resurfacing (PR) on the clinical and functional outcomes of total knee arthroplasty (TKA). Methods: The files of 257 patients who presented to our clinic between 2013 and 2022 and underwent TKA due to the diagnosis of grade IV gonarthrosis were screened retrospectively. Thirty-two patients were excluded due to not attending regular follow-up, receiving steroid treatment, or being morbidly obese. The sample consisted of 225 patients, of whom 123 underwent PR (Group A) and 102 did not undergo PR (Group B). The Sperner classification was used to evaluate the level of patellar arthrosis. The effect of PR on postoperative clinical and functional outcomes in patients undergoing TKA was investigated using the WOMAC knee functional scoring and Visual Analog Scale (VAS) for clinical and functional evaluation at six, 12, and 24 months postoperatively. Results: The presence of anterior knee pain wasstatistically significantly lower in Group A than in Group B (p=0.0001). There was no statistically significant difference between the comorbidity distributions of the groups. The preoperative-to-postoperative changes in the mean VAS and WOMAC scores were statistically significantly higher in Group A compared to Group B (p=0.0001 for both). Conclusion: The implementation of PR in TKA may vary depending on countries, clinics, and even surgeons. In the current study, PR was found to contribute positively to the clinical and functional outcomes of patients by preventing complications such as anterior knee pain that may develop due to patellar arthrosis in the postoperative period.