Anatomic bases of a vascularized allogenic knee joint transplantation: arterial blood supply of the human knee joint.

The vitality of a graft in a vascularized allogenic knee joint transplantation in humans will depend strongly on maintaining the arterial blood supply to the bone. As can be demonstrated in injected specimens on cadavers, only periostal aa. are important to ensure the blood supply of the human knee joint. The main arteries have defined nutritive areas. According to our results access to the vessels should most probably be conducted from the dorsal side of the knee. During the explantation the popliteal a. should be ligated proximally as high up as possible and distally just above its trifurcation. The articular branch of the descending genicular a. of both the donor and the recipient can be ligated because of a rich anastomotic network. The medial and lateral inferior genicular aa. of the donor should be ligated ventrally as far forward as possible. One should, above all, preserve the medial inferior genicular a. of the donor in order not to endanger the medial part of the distal segment of the graft. If an operation is to be performed according to the results of our anatomical studies, vascularized allogenic knee joint transplantations should be successful from an anatomical point of view.