Procedures

Uni-compartmental Knee Replacement

Patients requiring knee replacement may have osteoarthritis entirely localised to one or other knuckle or compartment of the knee, often associated with very mild bow leg or knock knee deformity. In these patients, and providing that strict criteria are adhered to, a partial knee replacement more usually called a uni-compartmental knee replacement may be performed.

Partial knee replacement has several advantages over total knee replacement. The surgery preserves more of the patient’s own natural knee.  Recovery is faster and the replaced knee may feel more natural and be more supple following surgery.   Rates of complication are a little lower.

The principal disadvantage is that partial knee replacements appear to be less durable than total knee replacement, most National Registries reporting failure rates at ten years around double those associated with conventional total knee replacement.

Mr Gibb & Mr Bowman began performing robotic assisted surgery using Smith & Nephew robotic tools in early 2021 and over 1000 robotic assisted knee and partial knee replacements have since been performed at the Nuffield Hospital.   The CORI robotic system facilitates very accurate intraoperative digital assessment and computer assisted planning.   Once the surgical plan has been finalised the robotic tool then allows the surgeon to perform the operation with much greater accuracy than is possible using conventional techniques.