New Advances in Surgical Approaches for Total Knee Arthroplasty

To provide the best possible care for their patients, it is crucial that today's orthopaedic surgeons remain up-to-date on new techniques that can help achieve better patient outcomes and satisfaction. Therefore, this special focus section contains articles addressing new advances in surgical and nonsurgical approaches available for surgeons managing patients considering total knee arthroplasty (TKA).

We hope that this issue serves as an impetus for further work on many of the important topics discussed. The rate of TKA performed in the United States and across the world has continued to grow, and is expected to continue to grow at an even faster rate. As one of the primary purposes of a physician is to best serve the needs of an ever-growing patient population, it is critical that orthopaedic surgeons stay up-to-date on the latest advances in surgical approaches. This issue helps fulfill this mission for our readership.

One of the most important recent advances in this field has been robotic-assisted TKA. Therefore, many of the articles in this issue discuss the potential of this surgical technology; specifically, outcomes on coronal alignment, approaches to difficult cases, a proposed learning curve, and short-term patient satisfaction outcomes. Additionally, various manual TKA techniques are compared, such as wound closure in flexion versus extension and gap balancing versus measured resection, as well as nonsurgical techniques, such as bone marrow-derived therapies for osteonecrosis, are also addressed in this special section. This special section also highlights particularly vulnerable populations for TKA and their surgical costs and revision rate implications.