Comparison of navigation systems for total knee arthroplasty: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Yichao Luan; Huizhi Wang; Min Zhang; Junwei Li; Ningze Zhang; Bolun Liu; Jian Su; Chaohua Fang; Cheng-Kung Cheng

doi:10.3389/fsurg.2023.1112147

Comparison of navigation systems for total knee arthroplasty: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Front Surg. 2023 Jan 17:10:1112147. doi: 10.3389/fsurg.2023.1112147. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Yichao Luan¹, Huizhi Wang², Min Zhang¹, Junwei Li¹, Ningze Zhang¹, Bolun Liu¹, Jian Su¹, Chaohua Fang^{2

3}, Cheng-Kung Cheng^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Biomechanics and Mechanobiology, Ministry of Education, Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Biomedical Engineering, School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing, China.
² Engineering Research Center of Digital Medicine, Ministry of Education; School of Biomedical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China.
³ Department of Joint Surgery, Ningbo No.6 Hospital, Ningbo, China.

Abstract

Background: Component alignment is a crucial factor affecting the clinical outcome of total knee arthroplasty (TKA). Accelerometer-based navigation (ABN) systems were developed to improve the accuracy of alignment during surgery. This study aimed to compare differences in component alignment, clinical outcomes, and surgical duration when using conventional instrumentation (CONI), ABN, and computer navigation (CN) systems.

Methods: A comprehensive literature search was carried out using the Web of Science, Embase, PubMed, and Cochrane databases. Articles that met the eligibility criteria were included in the study. Meta-analyses were performed using the Cochrane Collaboration Review Manager based on Cochrane Review Method. The variables used for the analyses were postoperative clinical outcome (PCO), surgical duration, and component alignment, including the hip-knee-ankle (HKA) angle, coronal femoral angle (CFA), coronal tibial angle (CTA), sagittal femoral angle (SFA), sagittal tibial angle (STA), and the outliers for the mentioned angles. The mean difference (MD) was calculated to determine the difference between the surgical techniques for continuous variables and the odds ratio (OR) was used for the dichotomous outcomes.

Results: The meta-analysis of the CONI and ABN system included 18 studies involving 2,070 TKA procedures, while the comparison of the ABN and CN systems included 5 studies involving 478 TKA procedures. The results showed that the ABN system provided more accurate component alignment for HKA, CFA, CTA, and SFA and produced fewer outliers for HKA, CFA, CTA, and STA. However, while the ABN system also required a significantly longer surgical time than the CONI approach, there was no statistical difference in PCO for the two systems. For the ABN and CN systems, there was no statistical difference in all variables except for the ABN system having a significantly shorter surgical duration.

Conclusion: There was no significant difference in the accuracy of component alignment between the ABN and CN systems, but the ABN approach had a shorter surgical duration and at lower cost. The ABN system also significantly improved the accuracy of component alignment when compared to the CONI approach, although the surgery was longer. However, there was no significant difference in PCO between the CONI, ABN, and CN systems.

Keywords: accelerometer-based navigation; clinical outcome; component alignment; meta-analysis; surgical duration; total knee arthroplasty.

Publication types

Review

Grants and funding

This research was funded by Ningbo Public Welfare Science and Technology project (grant number 2022S064), Yinzhou District Agriculture and Social Development Science and Technology Project (2022AS066), National Key Research and Development Program (grant number 2016YFC1101904) and Project of NINGBO Leading Medical & Health Discipline (grant number 2022-X13).