Why It’s Important

In the United States, surgeons performed slightly more than 1 million TKR procedures in 2010.⁴ Incidence is increasing rapidly and TKR rates are projected to grow to 1.5 million by 2020 and 3.5 million by 2030 (Chart 1).⁵ Increasing demand for TKR will place a growing burden on the U.S. healthcare system, and a strong need for faster and easier procedures, at a lower cost.

One of the key issues reported in 28 percent of TKRs with conventional instrumentation is malalignment, defined as greater than 3 degrees of deviation from mechanical axis.⁶ Intraoperative computer-assisted navigation has been reported to decrease the incidence of malalignment to 10.2 percent as compared to 28.2 percent with conventional instrumentation.⁷

Patient-specific templates were developed to improve alignment while reducing operating time and cost. Their use requires images from pre-operation computed tomography or magnetic resonance imaging scans to create patient-specific templates designed to align in knee replacement procedures.