Navigated total knee arthroplasty with the Navitrack® system

Abstract

Correct mechanical leg axis, coronal and rotational alignment, as well as balanced soft tissues are important factors in TKA [3, 5, 9, 12]. Deficiency in conventional instruments and limited measurability in manual surgery techniques are known and induced development of navigation systems in different orthopedic procedures [1, 6]. AT present most experiences are available in TKA navigation. Different studies could show reliable and reproducible results for mechanical leg axis in TKA using navigation [2, 4, 7, 8]. In TKA meanwhile imageless, kinematic systems are standard. CT-based systems may be helpful for special scientific questions. We use the Navitrack® TotalKnee™ (Orthosoft Inc., Montreal, Canada) with the imageless application since January 2002 for Implantation of the Natural Knee II® System (Zimmer, Warsaw, IN, US) and the Innex™ knee system (Zimmer, Warsaw, IN, US) with specialized software applications for each implant. In December 2005 we tested generic software with new instruments as a further stage in knee navigation. © 2007 Springer Medizin Verlag Heidelberg.