Primary Stability and Stiffness of Ankle Arthrodesis Techniques – Crossed Screws vs. Anterior Plating

Introduction Despite recent advances with total ankle replacement designs, ankle arthrodesis still remains the gold standard in treating symptomatic end-stage osteoarthritis. Among all techniques, screw fixation has shown to be one of the most applied techniques to perform ankle fusions. Due to a considerable rate of failures of conventional cross-screw techniques, more recently, a more anatomically shaped anterior double plate system has been introduced with a union rate of 100%. The purpose of the present biomechanical study was to compare the primary stability and stiffness of two groups of ankle fusion constructs crossed screw fixation and the anterior double plate system.