J Appl Biomed 19:234-239, 2021 | DOI: 10.32725/jab.2021.020

Finite element analysis of the tibial component alignment in a transverse plane in total knee arthroplasty

Roman Popescu^{1, *}, Stefan Cristea^{1, 2}, Valentin Oleksik³, Adrian Marius Pascu³, Emil George Haritinian^{1, 4}

¹ Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Bucharest, Romania

² Saint Pantelimon Emergency Hospital, Department of Orthopaedics and Traumatology, Bucharest, Romania

³ University of Sibiu, Faculty of Engineering, Department of Industrial Machinery and Equipments, Sibiu, Romania

⁴ Clinical Hospital of Orthopaedics and Traumatology and Osteoarticular TB "Foișorr", Bucharest, Romania

The research aims to analyze the tibial component rotation using the finite element method by resecting the tibia in a transverse plane at an angle between 1.5° (external rotation) and -1.5° (internal rotation). We used a three-dimensional scanner to obtain the tibia's geometrical model of a cadaveric specimen. We then exported the surfaces of the tibial geometrical model through the Computer-Aided Three-dimensional Interactive Application (CATIA), which is a Computer-Aided Design (CAD) program. The CAD program three-dimensionally shaped the tibial component, polyethylene, and cement. Our analysis determined that the maximum equivalent stress is obtained in the case of proximal tibial resection at -1.5° angle in a transverse plane (internal rotation) with a value of 12.75 MPa, which is also obtained for the polyethylene (7.693 MPa) and cement (6.6 MPa). The results have shown that detrimental effects begin to occur at -1.5°. We propose the use of this finite element method to simulate the positioning of the tibial component at different tibial resection angles to appreciate the optimal rotation.

Keywords: Finite element analysis; Rotational alignment; Tibial component; Total knee arthroplasty

Grants and funding:

No funding was received.

Conflicts of interest:

The authors have no conflict of interests to declare.

Received: May 17, 2021; Revised: September 6, 2021; Accepted: September 20, 2021; Prepublished online: September 20, 2021; Published: December 6, 2021  Show citation