Sensor Assessment of Gap Balance in Mobile-Bearing Unicompartmental Knee Arthroplasty

The most important procedure of mobile-bearing unicompartmental knee arthroplasty (UKA) is to balance the knee flexion and extension gap. Conventionally, the balance was determined by the subjective assessment of plugging out the feeling gauge. Since it mainly depended on the surgeons' experience, the accuracy was always in doubt. In the past 10 years, pressure sensors have been introduced to guide the gap balance in total knee arthroplasty (TKA). However, the sensor technique was introduced to UKA very recently. Herein is our sensor assessment of the gap balance in 20 cases UKA by one experienced surgeon. The sensor was a custom-designed force sensor matrix according to the shape of the tibial trial of mobile-bearing UKA. The postoperative clinical outcomes and radiographic results were recorded for future comparison. We aim to use this method to assess more than 200 cases of UKA by various surgeons to ultimately standardize the gap-balance result.