Abstract

This book is created by a collaboration of surgeons all over the world. The primary purpose of this book is collecting the available information about alignment and to combine the different opinions about this topic in one book. Today’s technology offers us a helping hand to perform better during surgery and to find the anatomical landmarks in a more consistent way. The book contains many pictures about the different surgical systems and offers many tips and tricks related to the subject. The authors discuss alignment and the anatomical landmarks used to align knee prostheses, the different patient specific instrument (PSI) systems and finally, other options to increase accuracy in knee surgery like navigation, robotics, individualized implants and soft tissue-guided surgery. Total Knee Arthroplasty (TKA) has proven to be an excellent treatment for knee arthritis. The ultimate goal being the facilitation of the reconstruction of the natural joint line height, the three different alignment planes, the correct femoral and tibial size and finally knee anatomy and kinematics. Unicompartmental tibiofemoral and patellofemoral arthroplasty can be used if limited parts of the joint present wear. The three alignment planes make a good mental picture of the 3D anatomy of the knee very challenging. Patient Matched Technology makes preoperative analysis and understanding of the complex 3D geometry of the knee possible before surgery. Patient Specific Instruments (PSI) available as different pinning and cutting guides help us with accurate positioning of the instruments matching easy-to-find surfaces in the knee, in contrast to the classic anatomical landmarks that are more difficult to find back consistently. Robotics will help us to increase accuracy during implantation reducing the impact of the surgeon’s own physical limitations and those of the available power tools.