Abstract
Introduction
The commonest causes of revision of Unicompartmental Knee Replacement (UKR) in National Registers are loosening and pain. Cementless UKR was introduced to address loosening and was found, in small randomised studies, to have better radiographic fixation than Cemented UKR. Although non-significant these studies also suggested the clinical outcome was better with cementless. The aim of this larger study was to compare the pain and function of cementless and cemented UKR at five years.
Methods
263 Cemented and 266 Cementless UKR of identical design, implanted by four high volume surgeons for the same indications, were reviewed by independent physiotherapists at five years. Revision, re-operation, Oxford Knee Score (OKS), American Knee Society score (AKSS) and EQ-5D were assessed. Two pain specific scores were also used: Pain Detect (PD) and Intermittent and Constant Osteoarthritis Pain (ICOAP). The pain scores were normalised onto a scale of 0 to 100 with 100 being the best. The cemented cohort was mainly implanted before the cementless, although there was considerable overlap. To explore whether differences were due to progressive improvement in surgical practice with time each cohort was divided into early and late subgroups.
Results
Pre-operatively there were no differences between the devices in patient demographics or scores. At 5 years there were no differences in revision rate (0.8%), re-operation rate (2.2%) or medical complication rate (4%). The Cementless had significantly (p<0.05) better OKS (43 v 41), AKSS and EQ5D. There were significantly (p=0.03) fewer cementless cases with unexplained pain (2.3% v 6%). The cementless had significantly (p<0.002), less ‘strongest’ (84 v 76) and ‘average’ (90 v 85) pain as assessed by PD and less chronic (97 v 92) and intermittent (93 v 86) pain as assessed by ICOAP. Subgroup analysis found no significant differences in outcome between the early and late subgroups within the cohorts, whereas there were significant differences in outcomes between the late subgroup of the cemented cohort and the early subgroup of the cementless cohort.
Discussion and Conclusion
Almost all outcome scores were significantly better following cementless compared to cemented UKR, suggesting that the cementless is better than cemented. However, as the cemented cases were mainly implanted before the cementless, it could be the difference was due to other factors, such as surgical technique or rehabilitation, that improved with time. This is unlikely to be the case as there were no differences between the early and late subgroups within the cohorts whereas there were differences between the late subgroup of the cemented cohort and the early subgroup of the cementless cohort which were implanted at a similar time.
Although the functional scores following cementless are significantly better than cemented, the differences are similar to or smaller than the minimally clinical important difference (MCID) for these scores. In contrast there is significantly less pain following the cementless and the differences tended to be greater than the MCID. This suggests that Cementless UKR is associated with appreciably less pain and slightly better function than Cemented UKR.
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