Acta chirurgiae orthopaedicae
et traumatologiae Čechoslovaca

Acta Chir Orthop Traumatol Cech. 2021; 88(4):313-320 | DOI: 10.55095/achot2021/047

The Effects of Proximal Fibular Osteotomy on the Knee and Ankle Joints: a Finite Element AnalysisOriginal papers

O. K. UNAL^1,*, M. Z. DAGTAS¹, C. DEMIR², T. NAJAFOV¹, E. UGUTMEN¹

¹ Department of Orthopedics and Traumatology, Maltepe University Faculty of Medicine, Istanbul, Turkey

² Department of Mechanical Engineering, Yildiz Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY:
In this study, our aim is to examine the effect of proximal fibular osteotomy on knee and ankle kinematics with finite element analysis method.

MATERIAL AND METHODS:
One 62-year-old, female volunteer's radiologic images were used for creating lower limb model. Osteotomized model (OM) which was created according to definition of PFO and non-osteotomized model (NOM) were created. To obtain a stress distribution comparison between the two models, 350 N of axial force was applied to the femoral heads of the models.

RESULTS:
After PFO, the average contact pressure decreased 26.1% at the medial tibial cartilage and increased 42.4% at the lateral tibial cartilage. The Von Mises stresses decreased 57.1% at the femoral cartilage and decreased 79.1% at tibial cartilage. The stress on the tibial cartilage increased 44.6%, and stress on the talar cartilage increased 7.1% at the ankle joint.

CONCLUSIONS:
FEA revealed that main loading at the knee joint shifted from medial tibial cartilage to the lateral tibial cartilage after PFO. Additionally, the stresses on each cartilage were redistributed across a wider and more peripheral area. FEA also demonstrated that the Von Mises stresses of the tibial and talar cartilages of the ankle joint increased after PFO.

Keywords: knee pain, osteoarthritis, osteotomy, finite element analysis, axial loadings

Published: August 15, 2021  Show citation