Morphological Measurements of Knee Joints in Indian Population: Comparison to Current Knee Prostheses

Most of the existing total knee arthroplasty (TKA) implants are designed to suit the knee anatomy of the Western population. Studies have shown that there are striking variations in knee morphology between the Asian and Western population. We conducted a case-control study to investigate the anthropometry of the Indian arthritic knees using three dimensional knee models and evaluated them morphologically against commercially available TKA implants. Measurements included the mediolateral width (ML), anteroposterior width (AP) and aspect ratio of femur and tibia. Indian females were found to have smaller dimensions of femur and tibia than Indian males and both had smaller aspect ratios than the Western population. Our study suggests that there is a morphological mismatch between existing implants and Indian arthritic knees. This may mean that Western implants have drawbacks when implanted in Indian patients.