Comparison of navigated and conventional high tibial osteotomy for the treatment of osteoarthritic knees with varus deformity: A meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: High tibial osteotomy (HTO) is a usefully surgical procedure to correct the malalignment and delay the progression of osteoarthritis. It is still controversy whether navigation system can offer more accuracy of targeted alignment and achieve better clinical outcomes than conventional method. The purpose of present meta-analysis was to investigate whether navigation system was superior to conventional method with regard to clinical and radiographic outcomes.

METHOD: The included studies compared the clinical and radiographic outcomes between navigated HTO group and conventional group. The clinical assessments were Lysholm Score, AKS Function Score and Arc of motion, and the radiographic outcomes were Mechanical axis (MA), Weight bearing line ratio (WBL), Outliers of alignment and Change in TPS used to evaluate alignment correction. The meta-analysis was performed using Review Manager 5.3 software. Downs and Black and the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (NOS) were used to evaluate the study quality.

RESULT: Sixteen studies were eligible in present meta-analysis, including thirteen studies concerning opening wedge HTO and three studies involving closing wedge HTO. Clinical outcomes were only reported in studies which used opening wedge HTO. No significant differences were observed in all clinical outcomes between navigated and conventional HTO. Regarding radiographic outcomes, no significant difference in WBL ratio was observed between navigated and conventional HTO. Patients undergoing navigated HTO were associated with significantly greater in MA and lower in Outliers of alignment compared with those undergoing conventional HTO. Compared with conventional HTO, increase in TPS was significantly lower in navigated HTO group using opening wedge HTO, but decrease in TPS was significantly greater in navigated HTO group using closing wedge HTO.

CONCLUSION: Our meta-analysis demonstrated that navigated HTO offered more accuracy and precision of alignment correction, except WBL ratio. However, better clinical outcomes were not observed in navigation group.