A study on assessment of proximal fibular osteotomy as a treatment of medial compartment knee osteoarthritis

Author(s): Dr. Anand Bhushan, Dr Rajesh Goel and Dr. Jitendra Kumar Aloria

Abstract: Knee osteoarthritis is a common chronic, progressive, degenerative disease in older individuals. Unicompartmental osteoarthritis accounts for one third of the cases. High tibial osteotomy, unicompaertment arthroplasty and total knee arthroplasty are the methods used for treatment. However, HTO can be a technically demanding procedure and may result in complications.
Based on recent clinical studies, the authors believe that the lateral support provided to the osteoporotic tibia by the fibula–soft tissue complex may lead to the nonuniform settlement and degeneration of the plateau bilaterally ^{[6, 7]}. This may result in aggravating the progression of medial compartment OA. Using this logic, the authors have performed a proximal fibular osteotomy for treatment of medial compartment OA of the knee joint as described in reference studies.
It is a hospital based prospective study done at New Hospital Medical College Kota. The Sample size was calculated to be 34 subjects at α-error 0.05 and study power 80%. Functional scores were calculated using Knee Rating Scale Score ^[8] (JOA), Visual analogue scale score (VAS) ^[9] and Womac score.
Proximal fibular osteotomy may re¬duce knee pain significantly in the varus osteoarthritic knee and improve the functional recov-ery of the knee joint. The results in our study are encouraging. It is a safe, simple, and effective proce-dure that is an alternative to HTO.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.22271/ortho.2022.v8.i1f.3045