Atraumatic Fracture of the Medial Femoral Condyle of a Total Knee Arthroplasty

Abstract

The fracture of the femoral component is a rare complication of a total knee arthroplasty (TKA). This article presents a case in which a 70-year-old man underwent a left press-fit Advance Medial-Pivot Knee System TKA (MicroPort Orthopedics, Arlington, TN) in 2000. Twenty years later, he experienced a nontraumatic onset of knee pain after standing up from a lunge position. Radiographs and CT scans revealed a complete fracture of the medial condyle of the femoral component. Revision surgery was performed confirming the broken component. A cemented Triathlon Total Stabilizer (Stryker Orthopedics, Kalamazoo, MI) prosthesis was used for the revision. The authors recommend that surgeons maintain a high level of suspicion of component fracture when patients present with persistent severe knee pain and instability after a TKA.

Atraumatic Fracture of the Femoral Component of a Cemented Total Knee Arthroplasty

“…This implant was withdrawn from the market 5 . Since then, only very few cases have been reported in the indexed scientific literature [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18] (Table I).…”

“…Implant fracture is one of the less common cause of revision after total knee arthroplasty (TKA), causing only 0.03 failures per 1,000 TKAs 1 . Moreover, the fracture is most commonly reported in the tibial component or in the polyethylene insert; the fracture of the femoral component is extremely rare 2 . However, this is a serious complication of TKA because challenging revision surgery is usually required.…”