[Role and controversy of unicompartmental knee arthroplasty in treatment of knee osteoarthritis].

A stepwise algorithm was proposed for the management of knee osteoarthritis.Unicompartmental knee arthroplasty(UKA) is a promising treatment option for unicompartmental knee osteoarthritis and widely used.It just replaces the lesion compartment with many advantages such as a smaller incision, less soft tissue injury, and more rapid recovery.UKA restores the native knee kinematics as the other compartments and knee ligaments are largely retained.Although there were many evidences that UKA could achieve good results when patient selections and surgical techniques were accurate.However, some registry data reported that UKA prostheses had lower survival rates compared to total knee arthroplasty.In this review, we try to analyze the current controversies, and evaluate the status and role for UKA in the treatment of knee osteoarthritis.Good results for knee osteoarthritis could be achieved by selecting appropriate methods and using UKA correctly in the future.