Partial knee replacement is a surgery of the knee joint in which only the damaged component of the knee joint is replaced. This allows patients to retain the natural component of the knee joint, while at the same time, relieving the patient of severe knee pain.
The human knee joint consists of 3 compartments the medial section (inner), the lateral (outer) section and the patellofemoral section (knee cap section). Unlike Total knee replacement in which we change all the three knee compartments in partial knee replacement only the affected component is replaced.
In-order to understand this better we need to look at how arthritis progresses in the knee joint. 80-90% of the times knee arthritis begins to occur in the medial section of the of knee joint. As the medial section further degenerates, the arthritic degeneration slowly progresses to other sections of the joint. If this deterioration is detected in the early stages, i.e. before it spreads to the other sections of the joint, partial knee replacement can help prevent the arthritis to spread further and significantly arrest the knee pain ailing the arthritic patient.
It’s important to understand, arthritis is an irreversible disease, the damage done to the medial section or other component cannot be undone. Hence, the best option available is to do a partial knee replacement. In this surgery, the damaged area of the knee joint is removed and resurfaced and a prosthesis component is introduced. This knee prosthesis is specifically designed based on the patient’s knee joint is introduced and functions like the natural component.
Dr. Shailendra is the first surgeon to perform lateral compartment knee replacement surgery in Mumbai.
The benefits of Partial knee replacement are:
- Patients retains most of the natural knee joint components, providing more comfort in adjusting to the new prosthesis.
- Patient feels like the prosthesis is part of the normal knee after surgery as compared to TKR.
- Post-surgery recovery is significantly faster as compared to a Total Knee Surgery.
- This Surgery involves minimal blood loss
- The complication post-surgery are extremely low.
Other Names of Partial Knee Replacement
Unicompartmental knee arthroscopy; PARTIAL Knee replacement; Unicondylar knee replacement; UKA; Minimally-invasive partial knee replacement, UNI, OXFORD KNEE
Intra-Operative images for Partial Knee Replacement surgery
