No Difference in Clinical Outcomes and Survivorship for Robotic, Navigational, and Conventional Primary Total Knee Arthroplasty with a Minimum Follow-up of 10 Years.

BACKGROUND

Computer-assisted surgery, including robotic and navigational total knee arthroplasty (TKA), has been proposed as a technique used to improve alignment of implants. The purpose of this study was to compare the clinical and radiological outcomes during a minimum follow-up period of 10 years among robotic, navigational, and conventional TKA.

METHODS

A total of 855 knees (robotic group, 194; conventional group, 270; and navigational group, 391) were available for physical and radiological examinations over a mean follow-up period of 10 years. The survival rate was analyzed using the Kaplan-Meier method based on the survival endpoint. The Hospital for Special Surgery score, Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index, Knee Society Score, and range of motion were used for clinical evaluation. The hip-knee-ankle (HKA) axis angle, the coronal inclination of femoral and tibial components, and the presence of radiolucent lines were also assessed at the final follow-up.

RESULTS

All clinical assessments at the final follow-up revealed improvements in the three groups without any significant difference among the groups ( > 0.05). The cumulative 10-year survival rate was 97.4% in the robotic group, 96.6% in the conventional group, and 98.2% in the navigational group, with no significant difference ( = 0.447). The rates of complication-associated surgery were not significantly different among the groups ( = 0.907). Only the proportion of outliers in the HKA axis angle showed a significant difference ( = 0.001), but other radiological outcomes were not significantly different among the three groups.

CONCLUSIONS

Our study demonstrated satisfactory survival rates for robotic, navigational, and conventional TKAs and similar clinical outcomes during the long-term follow-up. Larger studies with continuous serial data are needed to confirm these findings.