Purpose: To assess proper soft tissue balancing of the varus arthritic knee between posterior oblique ligament (POL) release group and superficial medial collateral ligament (SMCL) release group.
Materials and Methods: This retrospective study was performed on 186 patients who underwent minimally invasive surgery (MIS) total knee arthroplasty (TKA) from January 2011 to December 2011. Eighty-three patients were in the group of SMCL release and 103 patients were in the POL release group. We intended to use a 10 mm polyethylene insert (PE) during TKA, and retrospectively compared the actual thickness of PE between POL release group and SMCL release group.
Results: The mean PE thickness was 10.59±1.3 mm (range, 8 to 15 mm) in POL group and 11.88±1.8 mm (range, 10 to 18 mm) in SMCL group (p=0.001). We found a significant difference in the mean PE thickness between POL release group and SMCL release group.
Conclusions: POL and deep MCL releases in MIS-TKA would be beneficial for varus deformity correction in the osteoarthritic knee.